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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24316333">The Curious Case of Mr. Pamuk</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anise/pseuds/Anise'>Anise</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Mysteries of Downton Abbey [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Downton Abbey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, M/M, Murder Mystery, Romance, Secrets of Mr.Pamuk's death revealed, Suspense</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:55:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>48,489</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24316333</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anise/pseuds/Anise</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In one awful night, Anna Smith learns Lady Mary Crawley’s most shocking secret: a handsome Turkish diplomat named Mr. Pamuk died suddenly in her bed. The Crawley women are able to hide his death and avert the immediate scandal. But the mystery still nags at Anna’s mind. How exactly did Kemal Pamuk die, and why? It’s a mystery that she can’t resist trying to solve. But as she learns more and more, danger draws near…</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anna Bates/John Bates, Mary Crawley/Kemal Pamuk, Mary Crawley/Matthew Crawley, Thomas Barrow/Duke of Crowborough</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Mysteries of Downton Abbey [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2169357</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At one moment, Anna Smith was sleeping restlessly. Fragments of dreams chased each other through her mind, poking and prodding her almost to wakefulness, so unlike her usual peaceful, dreamless sleep. Images chased her, events and memories from earlier in the day.</p>
<p>The handsome face of the Turk, briefly glimpsed from the crack in the door where she stood with Gwen and O’Brien, all craning their necks for a glimpse at the new visitor as he strolled past them with Thomas.</p>
<p> “He doesn’t look Turkish at all,” Gwen said.</p>
<p>No, he didn’t, this Turkish gentleman. Although Anna couldn’t have said what her image of a Turk might be, she had vague memories of pictures from a battered copy of 1,011 Arabian Nights that had sat on a shelf in her mother’s cottage when she was a child. She would have pictured him spilling out of outlandish costumes, a turban perched on his head with a giant ruby flashing from its center, his cruelly thin-lipped mouth lurid and leering as he grabbed at a scantily clad slave girl. He certainly didn’t look like that, this Mr. Pamuk. Even spattered with mud from head to toe from riding, he was a devastating beauty of a man.</p>
<p>But there was something wrong about the sight of the elegant Pamuk this time, something off kilter. What was it? Her mind tried to grasp onto the wrongness, dragging her to the surface of sleep. She could almost hear the snorting sounds of Gwen’s snoring before the dream reached out and pulled her under again.</p>
<p> “Well, he doesn’t look like any Englishman I’ve ever met, worse luck,” Anna sighed in response. “I think he’s gorgeous.”</p>
<p>It was all still the same as what had actually happened several hours before, a copy of the brief, giggling, irreverent scene. But there was more to come. She knew it. Now, it was as if an undercurrent ran beneath every careless word, every moment that had been so lively in mischievous in real life, as if they’d all been drifting on a stream of impending menace towards a destination none of them even suspected, hidden and deadly.</p>
<p>Anna held her breath, waiting, knowing that something else would happen next, something besides Mr. Carson’s heavy feet and growling demand if there was <em>some crisis of which he was unaware. </em></p>
<p>And then it did.</p>
<p>Mr. Pamuk turned his head and looked at her. Anna stood transfixed. <em>That </em>hadn’t happened during the waking version. His dark eyes held hers, a tiny smile playing about the corners of his full mouth, both attractive and repellent. Anna struggled to stand still, to keep breathing calmly in and out. On either side, Gwen and O’Brien were silent. That was another difference from this moment in waking life. The three women had giggled and nudged each other, each clearly hoping that the handsome Turkish gentleman would happen to turn and catch her eye. But now, it was happening, and now, it was frightening.</p>
<p><em>It's a dream,</em> Anna repeated to herself again and again. <em>Only a dream. Nothing more.</em> This was a lucid dream; Anna understood it then. Her Cornish grandmother had always told her about such dreams, when the dreamer knew that she walked through a scene of imagination and fantasy. Anna had always wanted one, and never more so than in the past few months. She knew exactly why. Anna dreamed about snatched happy moments sometimes, reliving a word or a glance exchanged with John Bates. She’d always<em> wanted</em> to know she was dreaming so that she could embellish those moments with fantasy, with the sort of responses from him that he had never given her in waking life. Instead, their exchanges were always as brief and casual and meaningless in her dreams as they’d been in reality. She’d always wanted to control them when she was dreaming so that they happened the way she wished they had.</p>
<p>What Anna hadn’t understood, what she only realized now, was that a lucid dream could still be outside of her control—and that nothing would feel more frightening.</p>
<p>Mr. Pamuk turned his head all the way towards her. The long afternoon sunlight streaming through a window reflected off his dark hair. The strange, small smile still curved his lips. He began to walk towards her.</p>
<p><em>No. No…</em> Anna tried desperately to move, but her feet seemed nailed to the floor. Daisy and O’Brien stood like statues, as if they’d ceased to be real, flesh-and-blood people at all.</p>
<p>He came closer, each step as graceful as a panther.</p>
<p>“Please, oh please,” whispered Anna, forcing the words through her lips. “Don’t…”</p>
<p>He stretched out a hand to her. Anna’s gaze fell to his arm, which was bloodless and white. Her breath was starting to come in short, shallow gasps. She tried to pull her own arms back, but without her volition, she was lifting them slightly to meet his.</p>
<p>He stretched out his hand to hers. The fingers were stiff and icy, as no living flesh could be. Yet he was standing, and moving, and his smile was still the same.</p>
<p>“No!” cried Anna. And finally, she could move, her legs kicking, her arms flailing, dragging her up to the surface, gasping like a drowned woman breaking water at the last possible moment.</p>
<p>Then she was blinking at the familiar ceiling of the maid’s bedroom, staring at a crack in the plaster. <em>All a dream, only a dream.</em> The relief washed over her like a cold wave smacking her in the face on the beach at Brighton when she had gone there as a child with her mother.</p>
<p><em>Six o clock,</em> Anna thought for the first scrap of a moment, <em>but it seems so much earlier</em>, she was used to waking at the break of dawn from Daisy’s voice at the door, or in the winter, long before. <em>Ah, just once, I’d like to wake up natural. But it doesn’t matter, all that counts is that now I know it was a dream. Nothing but a dream-- </em></p>
<p>Before she could draw her next breath, a hand clamped down over her mouth.</p>
<p><em>Robbers!</em> was her first swift thought. Thousands of pounds worth of silver plate, only the most important pieces stored in the safe by Carson. Lady Grantham’s jewelry, the thick ropes of pearls, an emerald and diamond necklace, ruby rings, sapphire bracelets. Rare paintings hung on the walls all over the manor. So many costly items to steal. The back door was almost never locked.  And this was surely how a thief would manage it, silencing the servants first. <em>Maybe he had an accomplice, Thomas, I’ll bet!</em></p>
<p>But even the thought of robbers was better than that other fear, lurking beneath the surface, that Mr. Pamuk had followed her, that he had found her, that her dream had brought him to life in death.</p>
<p>
  <em>What a strange thought. Mr. Pamuk’s alive, all right, so why would I think about his death?</em>
</p>
<p>Her eyes blinked open, and Anna saw, not the unfamiliar vicious features of a thief, or the dead-white features of the dream-Pamuk, but Lady Mary’s frightened face.</p>
<p>“Shh!” her mistress hissed in a trembling whisper.</p>
<p>There was no time to think, and no way to make a sound without waking Gwen. Anna could tell that the other maid was sleeping more lightly after all the kicking and fidgeting she herself had been doing, and it wouldn’t take much more to wake her. Mary was gesturing frantically, then already turning and tiptoeing swiftly out of the room. Anna slipped out of bed as quietly as she could, following her. Gwen made a snuffling noise and then relaxed, her arms spreading across her own bed.  </p>
<p>They stopped in the dark corridor outside the servants’ rooms, and Mary turned to look at her maid. Her face was utterly white, her black brows shocking slashes of darkness against her cheeks, bleached of all color.</p>
<p>“What is it?” Anna whispered urgently. “What’s happened?”</p>
<p>Mary’s lips were trembling so hard that she could barely speak, even in a whisper. “I—I can’t explain it all right now, I can’t! But—please, you’ve got to help me! Anna, you’re the only one who can. I can’t tell anyone else—”</p>
<p>“Tell anyone else what?” Anna whispered back.</p>
<p>Mary shook her head and bit her lip, her eyes darting from side to side. She seemed to be struggling to gather her courage.</p>
<p>“There’s a man,” she said. “He’s…”</p>
<p> “What-who?” stammered Anna. “A man? Who? Where? I don’t understand--”</p>
<p>“The Turkish diplomat. Mr. Pamuk.” Mary took a deep, deep breath, and Anna knew, with a trace of the second sight of her Cornish grandmother, the dim shape of some terrible thing, that what Mary was about to say might shatter all their lives. “And he’s dead.”</p>
<p>For a blessed moment, what Mary had said still not seem quite real. “What?” Anna asked stupidly.</p>
<p>“He’s dead,” Mary said in a rush. “I think he’s dead. No, I’m sure he’s dead.”</p>
<p>“But how? Why?” Anna somehow managed to gasp.</p>
<p>“We were together and …” Mary’s words trailed off.</p>
<p>For a moment, there was only the sound of her ragged breathing. She glanced up at Anna, her gaze fearful, her dark eyes enormous and terrified as an animal caught in a trap.</p>
<p>“He’s dead,” Mary repeated in a thread of a voice.</p>
<p>“In your room,” said Anna. She understood now, all right.</p>
<p>They simply stared at each other for a moment, a strange moment in that time and place and world when even a servant and an earl’s daughter might be no more than two women, one desperate and frightened and unable to beg the other for help.</p>
<p>Not with her voice, at least. But Mary’s enormous dark eyes pled silently with all the desperate words she could not say. She was clearly as helpless as any child, as little capable of dealing with the situation as a baby, but Anna’s own mind seemed to be working unnaturally fast. For the moment, at least, she could not judge, could not condemn, and could not slide easily into shock. So instead, she thought.</p>
<p> “We’ve got to get him back to his own bed,” said Anna.</p>
<p>“How? It’s in the bachelor’s corridor, miles from my room.”</p>
<p>“Could we manage him between us?”</p>
<p> Mary shook her head. “He weighs a ton. I can’t shift him at all. We’ll need at least one other. What about Bates?”</p>
<p>Anna’s mind was still moving with that awful clarity and speed, and she knew she should hold onto the ability as long as possible. “He couldn’t lift him. William can’t keep a secret and Thomas wouldn’t try to. And there’s no point in asking Mr. Carson. He’d pass out from the shock.”</p>
<p> “Well, we’ve got to do something.”</p>
<p> “What about your sisters?”</p>
<p>Even before Mary shook her head firmly, Anna knew what a doomed suggestion that was. “Sybil’s too young. And Edith would use it against me for the rest of my life and beyond.”</p>
<p> “Then who else has as much to lose as you, if it ever gets out?”</p>
<p> “Not Papa,” cried Mary. “Please don’t say Papa. I couldn’t bear the way he’d look at me. “</p>
<p>And suddenly, Anna knew. “No, not his lordship.”</p>
<p>If possible, Mary’s face lost what little color remained.</p>
<p>Anna nodded. “Your lady mother.”</p>
<p> “Mama! No, no. If she knew…” Mary’s voice was like a hopeless prayer that she already knew would not be answered.</p>
<p><em>If she knew. When her ladyship knows, more like. Because there’s no other way, </em>thought Anna.</p>
<p>For the first time, the reality of it all began to steal into Anna’s mind, and she could not stop it. The entire situation was impossible at the moment, a lurid scene from a penny dreadful novel with a villain lurking just outside the door in a black cloak and top hat, twirling his mustache.</p>
<p>But the second someone else knew, it would all be real.</p>
<p>For just a moment, Anna did hesitate. What would happen once Lady Cora knew? What an explosive scandal it would be if anyone else ever found out, and how could they possibly keep this a secret? And above all, what Mary had been doing with this man in her room when he died? The questions pressed in on her mind thick and fast.</p>
<p>Mary laid her hand on Anna’s shoulder, the fingers cold and rigid. “Help me, Anna, please. Please,” she said in a fast, low voice. “You’re my only hope.” The vulnerability that so few people ever saw shone in her huge dark eyes. Mary always seemed invincibly strong. Only Anna knew, as no-one else on earth really knew, that the earl’s eldest daughter was perilously weak.</p>
<p>“You know I’ll always help you, my lady,” was all that Anna could say.</p>
<p>“All right. Yes, yes. Let me think. We’ll go and wake her. We’ve got to.” Mary rested her chin on her hand, her white front teeth nibbling at her knuckles. “But what will I <em>say</em>? She’ll ask how it happened.”</p>
<p><em>How on earth </em>did<em> it happen?</em> wondered Anna. But this wasn’t the time to wonder or speculate. The slightest noise could be enough to wake O’Brien, at the very least. The woman’s door was only a few yards from where they stood. She spent her every waking moment sniffing out every bit of information in the house, and as if weighed down by the sordid secrets of others, the lady’s maid slept lightly as a result. She might very well be standing behind the door right now, listening intently, gathering every whispered word.</p>
<p>“We’ve got to find your lady mother,” said Anna.</p>
<p>“You’re right,” said Mary. “We can’t waste a moment.” But she still looked so helpless, like a tall lanky child unexpectedly caught at some mischief that ought to have been harmless but had turned deadly, her hair hanging in her face, her shoulders shaking.</p>
<p>“Come on, then,” said Anna.</p>
<p>Mary reached for her hand, and Anna took the stiff fingers in her palm. Together, they stole down the corridor.</p>
<p>The journey seemed to go on forever in the dim hall, the sound of her own breathing shockingly loud, fear darting through her that someone would hear their footsteps and wake up, come out into the hall, and ask what was going on, perhaps that Thomas or William would be walking about for whatever reason. During that short walk that seemed as if it would never end, Mary only spoke once.</p>
<p>“I don’t understand,” she said, helplessly, pitiably.</p>
<p>Anna looked at her mistress and understood that Mary was confessing her lack of understanding just once, because she must, and she could not let those words fall in front of her mother, where she must be as strong as possible. Not that Anna herself understood, either.</p>
<p>But then…</p>
<p>What was there to understand?</p>
<p>That was the first suspicion that Anna had. Beneath her shock at the death, the sinking feeling at what Lady Mary had apparently done, the confusion over why she could have done it, the dread of what was coming next when they would be forced to tell her mother, questions stirred. They threatened to bob to the surface, for all that now was not the time to ask them. </p>
<p>How could this radiantly healthy young man have suddenly died?</p>
<p>How did any of it make sense?</p>
<p>What<em> had</em> really happened?</p>
<p>And why?</p>
<p>000000000000000000000000000000000000</p>
<p>If you’ve seen Downton Abbey, you remember Mr. Pamuk.</p>
<p>Even if the TV was on in the background while you chased toddlers around the house, gave your cat a flea bath, or tried to separate warring family members at Christmas dinner, you couldn’t help seeing the character that Theo James created. And you definitely remember that moment in the second episode of the first season, at the meet at Downton, when Lady Mary first saw him.  We all remember that he dropped dead in Mary’s bed, and that she, Anna, and Cora were barely able to keep the scandal from instantly breaking over their heads. </p>
<p>In 1912, this was an event that, as Mary correctly informs us, could have caused a scandal that would live on long after all of the currently living Crawleys were dead—if it ever got out. As it happened, the story never exploded into public consciousness in exactly the way that Mary and Cora had feared, but it seeped through the events of the next several seasons like a bloodstain that refused to dry up. The secret of Pamuk’s death affected so many things. In the words of the Downton Abbey Wiki, “Mary's relationships with her mother Cora, her sister Edith, her aunt Rosamund, her grandmother Violet, the servants, her lack of invitations to parties in London during "The Season," her fiancée Sir Richard, and most importantly, her cousin, love interest, and Downton Abbey heir, Matthew Crawley. Pamuk's death also affects Bates' relationship with Lord Grantham, (and) with his estranged wife Vera.” I would add that if Matthew had married Mary earlier, then two things might have been radically different. He never would have gotten involved with Lavinia Swire, who would probably have lived as a result (she wouldn’t have been at Downton Abbey to catch the 1919 flu, and her heart wouldn’t have been broken.) Because Matthew wouldn’t have been Mr. Swire’s heir, Robert’s stupid business decisions that caused all their money to be lost would have played out in a way that showed the natural consequences of making that kind of mistake. But before we start thinking that maybe something positive could have come out of it after all, there’s another thing to remember.  If Mary and Matthew had married at an earlier point, then George would have been born earlier too, so Matthew wouldn’t have been on the road at the exact moment of the accident, and he wouldn’t have died. In fact, you could really say that everything about the series after Kemal Pamuk’s death was set in motion by that event.</p>
<p>And yet there’s a major paradox here. The exact way that Pamuk died doesn’t seem to be important at all, considering how it’s presented in the show. The specifics are brushed under the rug and quickly dismissed. We don’t see whatever it was that happened to him; we only know what others tell us. In fact, we really only get two specific pieces of information about how or why Pamuk died. We know that he’s dead. We know that Dr. Clarkson said he died of a heart attack. And that’s it. It’s all second and third hand information, and there is very little of it. This is odd, considering that his mysterious death was like a stone thrown into a pond, the ripples from which would affect Mary’s life forever after (and in some ways, the lives of all the Crawleys and most other characters in the series.) </p>
<p>Basically, all we know is an extremely short version of the obvious answer to the mystery of Pamuk’s death. But the question remains: is it a true answer? We know what we were told. But can we accept this information at face value?</p>
<p>I think that there is every reason for us to <em>not </em>do this. If we want to learn more, if we have any interest in exploring the question further, then I don’t think we can or should accept the obvious when it comes to the curious case of Mr. Pamuk. There are too many clues in canon that much more might be going on here, and that the question of what actually happened is more than worth digging into. By the time we’ve sifted all the information, we’ll see a very different theory about what really happened to Mr. Pamuk, and why. And that’s what this story is all about. </p>
<p>I can’t reveal at this point exactly what these key clues and elements are, because they form the argument for why Pamuk might have been murdered. But we will go through them before the end of this story. There is also a factor which I think is necessary to make this more than a fun but fictional fan theory:  Julian Fellowes left the door open in his own words and notes on the subject of Pamuk’s fate. This is a crucial factor that we’ll explore later on.  We’ll examine all the hints, sift through all the clues, and shove all the facts under a microscope. We will find that the answer is both completely supported and completely unexpected. There are many canon-based reasons to believe that Pamuk may not have died of a heart attack, but instead, was murdered. And I think that once you know what these reasons are, there’s a good chance you’ll agree with me. Because when it comes to the mysterious death of Mr. Pamuk, a lot doesn’t add up.</p>
<p> In the next chapter, we—and Anna-- will start to learn why. The story will be told in the format that we’ve seen here-- half fiction, and half nonfiction essay. We will take this journey with Anna as she tells the story. Through her eyes and her thoughts, and also through some analysis, we will explore the curious case of Mr. Pamuk. We’ll answer the haunting and unresolved questions.</p>
<p>How did he really die?</p>
<p>Who killed him?</p>
<p>And more than anything else, as Anna wondered, <em>why?</em> </p>
<p>0000000000000000000000000000000</p>
<p>Thanks so much for reading this chapter! This is literally the first piece of DA fanfic I’ve ever posted, but I’ve been writing in the Potter fandom for a LONG time. So if you need a good long D/G fic to read before we go into the NEXT round of quarantine, I have a lot of them. More coming soon!</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. In Which Anna Is Determined to Forget</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially: Grouchy Critic94, Romantika, DarkKnight362, and Soup2B.</p><p> </p><p>00000000000000000000000000000000000000000</p><p>“O what a bright, bright hill is yon,<br/>
That shines so clear to see?"<br/>
"O it is the hill of heaven," he said,<br/>
"Where you shall never be."<br/>
<br/>
"O what a black, dark hill is yon,<br/>
"That looks so dark to me?"<br/>
"O it is the hill of hell," he said,<br/>
"Where you and I shall be.”</p>
<ul>
<li><em>The Demon Lover, traditional Scottish ballad </em></li>
</ul><p> </p><p>
  <strong>SUNDAY 3:00 a.m. </strong>
</p><p>But then there was no time left to wonder, because they had reached Lady Grantham’s door. Mary’s face was so white, even in the dim light of the corridor, that Anna was afraid her mistress would faint. She didn’t dare to knock, so she pushed the door open as quietly as she could.</p><p>Lady Cora sat up in bed, her eyes blinking, the luxurious sheets and coverlet moving around her shoulders, revealing her white lawn nightgown trimmed with lace. Lord Robert was lying next to her, Anna saw with a pang of fear. Unlike most married couples of the day, they nearly always shared a bed. And apparently, she and Mary weren’t lucky enough for this to have been one of those nights when her husband was restless, or coming down with a cold, or perhaps there had been a minor marital tiff, and the couple slept separately.</p><p>“What on earth?” Cora began in a low, sleepy voice.</p><p>“Mama. I can’t explain,” Mary said in a low rush. “But you’ve got to come with me.”</p><p>“But what—”</p><p>“Please, please don’t ask, just come. We <em>can’t</em> wake Papa,” said Mary.</p><p>There was something about her enormous dark eyes and rigid face that seemed to stop whatever question her mother might have in its tracks. The two stared at each other, and in the brief silence, her husband’s snuffling snore stopped. He grumbled something in restless tones and reached out towards his wife. There was clearly not a moment to be lost. Cora laid a hand on Lord Grantham’s shoulder until he relaxed back into sleep. Then she got out of bed, slipping a pink dressing gown over her shoulders and fitting her feet into bedroom slippers.</p><p>“Anna, what is the meaning of this?” she hissed under her breath as Mary led them back towards her own room. </p><p>Anna couldn’t even think of a reply. She only shook her head. Lady Grantham would know soon enough, and God help them all once she did.</p><p>Mary opened the door, and Cora walked in. Her footsteps slowed. Her eyebrows nearly hit her hairline when her gaze fell on the bed, and on the stiff, still body of Mr. Pamuk, spread across the mattress, his eyes open. She stared and stared until Anna wondered if her ladyship would ever move again, or if they were all destined to stand in the middle of the floor of Lady Mary’s room for the rest of eternity with the Turkish gentleman’s dead body laid out in front of them.</p><p>“What—happened?” Cora finally gasped, breaking the silence.</p><p>Mary moved around the bed, putting a bit of distance between herself and her mother. “I don’t <em>know! </em>A heart attack, I suppose. Or a stroke. Or … He was alive and suddenly he cried out. And then he was dead.”</p><p> “But why was he here at all?” Cora asked sharply. “Did he force himself on you?”</p><p>Mary hesitated. Then she shook her head.</p><p>Cora sucked in her breath and stood stock still.</p><p>That didn’t seem like the entire story at all, Anna thought. But she didn’t know what had actually happened, couldn’t even guess. Except that Lady Mary and this man had been engaged in… <em>something…</em> and now he was dead.</p><p>“Well … we can talk about that later,” said Cora. “Now, we must decide what to do for the best.”</p><p>Yet they stood staring at each other, mother and daughter, and Anna understood that if nothing intervened, they really might stand until morning and discovery and horror and ruin. She herself was still moving in the cold detachment she had felt from the moment she knew what had happened. She hoped it would last long enough for her to say what must be said, and then to do what must be done.</p><p>“There’s only one thing we can do,” said Anna. When Lady Cora stared back at her, she knew that Mary’s mother understood. They had no choice at all but to get Mr. Pamuk back to his own room in the bachelor’s quarters, quickly, quietly, and without being seen.</p><p>“I couldn’t. It’s not possible,” said Cora, but without conviction.</p><p>Mary whirled on her mother. “If you don’t, we will figure in a scandal of such magnitude it will never be forgotten until long after we’re both dead.”</p><p>Anna certainly knew that this was true, and that the lady of Downton Abbey knew it too.</p><p> “But I—” said Cora in one last hopeless protest.</p><p> “I’ll be ruined, Mama. Ruined and notorious, a laughing stock, a social pariah. Is that what you want for your eldest daughter? Is it what you want for the family?”</p><p>Cora sighed, and then gave Mary a long, hard look. “We must cover him up,” was all that she said.</p><p>The bedroom door opened, and the three women came awkwardly out the room, all glancing nervously from side to side. This was mad, thought Anna as she carried Pamuk’s legs, Mary and Cora following behind her with one of the man’s limp arms over each of their shoulders. The thin light of dawn was beginning to seep into the hallway through the high latticed windows, Anna saw. They had very little time.</p><p>“Hurry,” whispered Cora, echoing her thoughts. “The servants will be up soon.”</p><p> “We’ve got time,” said Anna, trying to sound reassuring and feeling pretty sure that she had failed.</p><p>Pamuk’s handsome head lolled sideways against Cora’s neck, and she gave a little cry. Mary drew in her breath in a sharp hiss.</p><p>“Mama!”  </p><p>“Sorry,” muttered Cora, her eyes as wide and fixed as her daughter’s.</p><p>They moved on and started towards the bachelor’s corridor, their movements painfully slow. Hurry, hurry! thought Anna. But she could barely hold his cold, stiff legs and keep moving; she was staggering under the weight. As they struggled down the hall, Anna thought she saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. But when she turned her head down the corridor, towards the door leading to the staircase from the servant’s quarters, nothing was moving. Her imagination must be playing tricks on her. <em>God knows, this is enough to make anyone take on bad, </em>she thought.</p><p>Then they turned the corner, and finally, finally, Anna pushed open the door towards the guest room that had been assigned to Mr. Pamuk.  She pulled off his dressing gown and hung it behind the door while the other two women lowered him to the bed. Mary arranged him in position, Anna drew the coverlet up to his chest, and Cora went to the door. Two candles flickered on the dresser, casting light and shadow over Mary’s face as she reached down to close his staring eyes.</p><p>“I—I can’t make his eyes stay shut,” she gasped, her voice trembling.</p><p>“Leave that and come away!” hissed Cora.</p><p>“He was so beautiful,” said Mary in a choked sob.</p><p>Anna went to Mary and took her by her shoulders. “Her ladyship’s right. We must get back to our rooms.”</p><p>She led Mary to the door, but Cora stood with her back to it, her carriage stiff and her face set.</p><p>“I feel now I can never forgive what you have put me through this night,” Cora said in a voice of iron. “I hope in time I’ll come to be more merciful. But I doubt it.”</p><p>“You won’t tell Papa,” pled Mary.</p><p>“Since it would probably kill him and certainly ruin his life, I will not,” Cora replied. “But I keep the secret for his sake, not for yours.</p><p>“Yes, Mama.” Mary’s head drooped to the floor.</p><p>Cora turned to Anna. “Anna, I will not insult you by asking that you also conceal Lady Mary’s shame. Now, let us go.”</p><p>She opened the door, and the three women slipped silently out.</p><p>At the door leading to the back stairs, Anna hung back, unsure if she ought to leave Mary alone with her mother or not. Surely she ought to give Lady Cora the opportunity to speak to her daughter further, if that was she wanted? But mother and daughter kept hurrying back towards their own rooms, and after a few moments’ hesitation, Anna made her way towards the corridor where they’d both been headed.</p><p>Mary’s door was not quite closed, and Anna tapped briefly before pushing it open. Mary was lying on her bed, as stiff and unmoving as Mr. Pamuk had been, her eyes staring at nothing. Anna had no idea what to say, or to do.</p><p>“Would you like me to stay until morning, my lady?” she whispered.</p><p>Mary continued to stare.</p><p>“Please…” Anna stopped, because she didn’t know what she was pleading for. Except, perhaps, that anything at all would happen to stop Mary staring at the ceiling as fixedly as Mr. Pamuk had done a few minutes before, expressionless as any corpse could be.</p><p> “You really ought to go back to bed now, Anna,” she said dully.</p><p>She did know that her mistress was right, that the moments were ticking down towards danger, towards morning. She had no idea what time it had been when Mary first clamped a hand over her mouth and then begged for her help, much less how much time had elapsed between then and now. The landscape outside the small window at the end of the corridor was still dark, but the sky was touched with so much light that Anna thought it had to be at least five-thirty, and probably later. Dangerously late.  As lady’s maid, she had every right to be in her mistress’s room, but she had no desire to create an opportunity for anyone to put two and two together to make a disturbing sum.</p><p>And yet…</p><p>And yet, if a corpse could speak, Anna imagined that it would sound very much as Mary had just done. <em>I can’t just leave her!</em></p><p>“You’ll be missed,” Mary went on in the same completely flat voice. “Won’t you?”</p><p>“Well… yes. Daisy will be up to the servant’s corridor soon,” said Anna.</p><p>“You’d best be in your own bed when she does.”</p><p>“But—”</p><p>Mary turned her head away so that she was now staring at the wall, which didn’t seem to be much of an improvement. “Please. Go. Leave me.”</p><p>There seemed nothing else to say. Anna crept out of the room, Mary still staring at the wall as the door closed.</p><p>
  <strong>SUNDAY, 9:00 a.m.</strong>
</p><p>The next morning, Mary did not say a word as Anna brought her a tray for breakfast. She picked at the food, shoving it around the plate.</p><p>“Would you like to stay in bed today, my lady?” asked Anna.</p><p>Mary hesitated and then shook her head. “No. I’ll go down.” She allowed Anna to dress her in a simple morning outfit of a white and navy blue striped blouse and black skirt, but she did not speak further. Anna didn’t speak either. She could feel the other woman’s fragility, as if her very self were barely held together by a hair, her mind and body threatening to break into shattered glass at the slightest touch. She was afraid for her, but if Mary said nothing, then neither could she. Perhaps they would be bound by silence forever.</p><p> Mary leaned on her slightly and they walked down the corridor together, which certainly wasn’t her mistress’s usual habit. Her slight weight felt heavy and sad against Anna’s arm. Anna wished that Mary wasn’t insisting on going downstairs at all; it would have been better if she’d said she was ill and remained in bed for the day, surely? But she could see by the set of Mary’s jaw that there was no point in trying to suggest otherwise.</p><p>When Mary rounded the corner and started down the grand central staircase, Anna lingered behind for a moment, watching her, really afraid that she might stumble and fall.  If her mistress did stumble, then she herself needed to be nearby to rush out and catch her.</p><p>The dining room door opened, and a young man came out.  Anna had to keep her eyes fixed on his smooth, unremarkable face to remember what he looked like; the instant she looked away from him, she forgot his bland features.  His valet had been exactly the same way, thought Anna, a soft-spoken, rather small man who had eaten a few meals with them downstairs and whose name she couldn't even remember now. <i>Alan? Adam? Alec? Although we'll never see him again, so I suppose it doesn't matter.</i></p><p>“I imagine you’ve heard what’s happened?” he asked.</p><p>“Yes,” said Mary. She stopped halfway down the stairs and looked at the man standing below her on the landing.</p><p>“Terrible thing. Awful. Ghastly for your parents. I don’t suppose I shall ever make it up to them.” He shifted position awkwardly but stayed where he was.</p><p><em>Evelyn Napier.</em> Anna remembered him now; he was the guest who had brought Mr. Pamuk to Downton in the first place. He was pleasant enough, but he seemed a very forgettable man.</p><p> “It’s not your fault,” said Mary.</p><p>“I brought him here. If it isn’t my fault, whose is it?”</p><p><em>What a strange thing to say, </em>thought Anna.</p><p>“Breakfast’s almost finished. Shall I tell someone you’re down?” he asked.</p><p>“No, thank you. I had a tray in my room,” said Mary.</p><p>“My mother never used to allow trays for unmarried girls.” His voice was light, his manner diffident, but for the first time, Anna wondered if there was something else going on beneath the forgettable surface. She struggled to understand what it might be.</p><p>“Nor does mine. As a rule,” Mary replied.</p><p> “I was wondering if you might show me the gardens before I go? We could get some fresh air?”</p><p>He was so clueless, though Anna, his unremarkable face so guileless and open.</p><p>“I won’t, if you’ll forgive me. I ought to stay and help Mama.”</p><p>“Of course.” He was clearly trying to lift Mary’s spirits a bit, no matter how clumsy the attempt.  He made a movement as if to turn away, then turned back. “I am so sorry about all this. I should never have inflicted him on you in the first place.”</p><p>“Please don’t say that. We were glad to have him here. Very glad,” Mary said quickly.</p><p>“Lynch’s taken a message to the local … “ Mr. Napier checked himself. <em>Funeral home</em>, he was about to say, thought Mary. <em>But it doesn’t sound right, and at least he has the tact to realize it. </em>“They’ll be along to collect him in an hour or so. I’ll wait until that’s done.”</p><p>Mary looked at the floor.</p><p>“I’ve told your father I’ll deal with the Embassy. There won’t be any more annoyance for you,” he went on.</p><p><em>Deal with the embassy?</em> Thought Anna. <em>I wonder what that means? Oh—that’s right. He said something about Mr. Pamuk’s being the Turkish ambassador’s son. </em></p><p>“Thank you.” Mary’s voice wavered slightly, so slightly that Anna wondered if anyone but herself would even notice it. Certainly not this oblivious, awkward young man.</p><p>“Actually, he was a terribly nice fellow. I wish you could have known him better. I took him on as a duty, but I liked him more and more, the longer I knew him.”</p><p> At last Mary looked up, her face pinched, tears brimming in her eye.  </p><p>“Perhaps you saw his qualities for yourself?” His eyebrows raised slightly.</p><p>Mary turned and stumbled back upstairs with none of her customary grace.</p><p>Mr. Napier looked after her, his face settling into lines of disappointment. “Which, obviously, you did,” he muttered, just loud enough for Anna to hear.</p><p><em>Well, no need to wonder what he was thinking the entire time,</em> thought Anna. He was jealous, of course, and she felt a bit foolish for not understanding it at once. Anna had overheard snatches of a conversation a few days before between Mary and her mother about this Mr. Napier before he’d ever arrived, something about writing a letter and coming up for the hunt. She had been fetching a shawl for Mary from the house and had come out to give it to her. While she hadn’t heard everything, even a few sentences were enough to get a fair idea of what was going on. Anna had put two and two together and figured out that Mary’s mother, at least, was angling to make him a possible husband for her daughter. Lady Cora had been much keener on the idea.</p><p>Anna studied him for a minute as he stood. His face was full of disappointment as he kept looking up the staircase, his eyes searching out where Mary had gone. <em>Sorry, Mr. Napier</em>, she thought with a trace of pity for him. He was the sort of aristocratic man she’d seen before, many times. Pleasant, nice, and forgettable as a glass of lukewarm water. He never would have had a chance with Mary, although it was as plain as the nose on his face that he’d wanted one.</p><p>Then he, too, turned and disappeared in the other direction. Anna closed the door completely and went down the corridor the other way towards the servants’ back stairs.</p><p>“I had an uncle who went like that. Finished his cocoa, closed his book and fell back dead on the pillow,” declared William.</p><p>Anna nodded and mumbled something inaudible, putting down the tray with the breakfast dishes. The snatches of conversation she’d heard downstairs all seemed to be along these lines, at least so far. She was listening intently to every word that was being said, even though she felt silly for doing so. Nobody else could possibly know anything, so there was no point in trying to figure out if anybody did. There was no reason for her breath to come short, for her senses to tingle with apprehension. None at all.</p><p>But with the next spoken sentence, she knew that there was.</p><p>“I don’t think Mr. Pamuk bothered with cocoa much, or books,” said Thomas. “He had other interests.”</p><p>Did he flash her a glance after that, or had she only imagined it? Anna wondered. Thomas Barrow couldn’t possibly know anything—or at least, she didn’t see how he could. But then, Thomas always seemed to know everything. He was like water lapping at the stern of a boat, and so was O’Brien, who thankfully wasn’t there at the moment. You always had to keep them outside, and it wasn’t easy. Give them the slightest leak, and they’d weasel through. Before you knew where you were, your boat would be sinking.</p><p>“I meant you can go just like that. With no reason,” William went on. Anna wished he would shut up.</p><p>“That’s why you should treat every day as if it were your last,” said Gwen, standing next to her.</p><p>“Well, we couldn’t criticize Mr. Pamuk where that’s concerned,” said Thomas, casually. Too casually.</p><p> Anna shivered and hoped that nobody had noticed.  Daisy glanced up sharply from the end of the table.</p><p>“What do you mean?” she asked.</p><p>“Nothing. Careful with that.” He picked up the empty tray and left, followed by William.</p><p>“You’re very quiet,” said Gwen, studying Anna.</p><p>Anna tried to force a smile but stopped halfway through, realizing that any kind of cheerful expression would look even more suspicious. “There’s a corpse upstairs,” she said tightly. “What would you like me to do? Sing?”</p><p>She couldn’t stay there another moment. She could feel the uneasy interest, the desire for gossip and chatter and nervous laughter, the range of emotions that were natural enough after the unexplained death of anyone at all, much less a handsome young stranger. But was there more? What had Thomas’s words meant? Was suspicion stirring behind his deliberately bland features? And why did Daisy seem disturbed?</p><p>Anna gave a shake of her head as she hurried up the stairs. It didn’t matter, of course. None of it did. What had happened the night before had happened, and now must be forgotten and ignored and gone round like an immovable rock in a field cleared for plowing. She would stop thinking about all of it immediately.</p><p>She <em>would.</em></p><p>
  <strong>Author’s Notes:</strong>
</p><p>I think that this is a pretty realistic scenario for what was most likely going through Anna’s head during this entire sequence. Her loyalty was to Mary, and there was no way that she was going to gossip about the incident or let anything slip to anyone else, downstairs or up. If this was all there was to it, then I think that her thoughts at the end of the chapter would have been more or less the end of it. She would have forced herself to forget what she’d seen and experienced surrounding the death of Mr. Pamuk.</p><p>However, as we’re going to see in future chapters, the evidence shows that there was more to that mysterious death than what is immediately obvious. That’s the part which I think is canon. To turn Anna’s story into a fictional narrative based on fact, though, I had to look at the question of exactly what it would take to goad her out of her determination to forget the Mr. Pamuk disaster and never go any further with trying to figure out what had happened. What we’ll see in the next chapter is that a specific inciting event is enough to tip Anna over into deciding that she must solve the mystery of what really did happen. There’s only one thing that I think would be strong enough to get her to that point, and I also think it’s believable that this event actually might have taken place behind the scenes, a part of the plot that we never got to see.</p><p>So what is this deciding factor? And what’s the mystery that Anna begins to investigate? Well, we’ll just have to wait for Chapter 3 to find out. Things are really going to start to get interesting… 😉</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially rumidha! 😊  </p>
<p>“What! Would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give?”</p>
<ul>
<li><em>The Ghost of Christmas Past, A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens</em></li>
</ul>
<p>
  <em>SUNDAY</em>
</p>
<p>Mary walked round the gardens for hours that day, which was not her customary behavior. She shook her head when Anna offered to accompany her. Later, she lay down before dinner and asked not to be disturbed until it was time to dress her. Anna didn’t care for the way Mary stared at the ceiling with blank eyes, but she decided to say nothing. <em>Least said, soonest mended.</em></p>
<p>At any rate, <em>she</em> wasn’t going to think about any of it any more.</p>
<p>Mary was completely calm when Anna arrived to dress her for dinner, her lovely oval face smooth and still, only the faintest dark shadows under her eyes, like the palest trace of bruises. True, she spoke less than usual, but there was no trace of the agitation and misery of the night before. Anna helped her mistress to change into a new evening dress. It had a teal blue bodice scattered with darker dots and an overskirt shaded with green, parting at one side below a silk flower at the waist to show the flowing, narrow skirt that matched the bodice. A modest ivory lace insert fit over the bosom. Mary looked beautiful, as always, and just a bit fragile, as she rarely did. </p>
<p>Only once, Anna dared to ask a question. “Are you all right, my lady?” Her voice was soft.</p>
<p>Mary gave a brief, social laugh, the sort of sound that would not have been out of place in any drawing room except for its barely perceptible brittle edge.</p>
<p>“Of course, Anna. Why shouldn’t I be?”</p>
<p>“No reason at all.” Anna forced herself to smile.</p>
<p>It was a relief, of course. Anna had wondered if Mary would ever really be able to let it go, whatever it was that actually had happened between herself and Mr. Pamuk. But now it seemed that Mary could. Or at any rate, she surely wasn’t going to want to talk about it ever again. She would deal with it in her closed, private way, hiding her emotions as her class had been trained to do.</p>
<p>Later that night, it was true, she found Mary in the guest room Mr. Pamuk had used. She was surprised to see Mr. Carson there as well. But Mary’s voice and carriage and eyes were bright and brittle as she said they had only been making sure everything was shipshape and in Bristol fashion. There was no chink in her armor, at least none that Anna could see.</p>
<p><em>Forget about it all, just forget,</em> she thought as she hung up Mary’s evening dress and gave it a good brushing. <em>Lady Mary will do, given a bit of time. Her lady mother won’t, but she’ll sort of push it under, and that’s as good as forgetting, or it’s enough to go on with, at any rate. And Edith doesn’t know, which is just as well, to say the least. Mary was quite right—that’s a spiteful sister who would hold it against her through eternity and beyond, if she knew anything at all. So I’ve got to forget, too.</em></p>
<p>Yes, everyone would forget, or perhaps that was not quite the right word. They would never forget; the actions of that night would remain stamped upon their minds and their very souls, but they would all be able to push down the memory of what had happened, and submerge Mr. Pamuk under the smooth surface of things. She herself would certainly be able to manage it. By the end of a very long day, Anna had quite convinced herself of this, and she fell into bed with every intention of a long, peaceful night’s sleep.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The scream echoed through the room, high and shrill. Anna gasped and sat bolt upright in bed. Gwen was fast asleep in the small single bed on the other side. How was that possible? How could the other girl not have heard that awful scream?</p>
<p>Well, there was one thing she could be sure of. That had been Lady Mary’s voice, and no mistake. Anna scrambled out of bed, threw on her dressing gown and slippers, and hurried upstairs. The corridor with the family’s rooms was dark and silent, not the slightest disturbance to be seen or heard. There were no open doors, no sleepy heads peeking out of other rooms, no Thomas or William roused from their posts. <em>And thank the Lord for that!</em> None of it made any sense, but there was not a moment to spare in trying to figure it out as Anna rushed into Mary’s bedroom.</p>
<p>Mary was sitting up in bed, hands clenched into fists, bunching up the coverlet. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, staring at the door. Anna rushed to her side, but she didn’t seem to even be aware of her presence.</p>
<p>“No…” she muttered in a trembling voice. “No! Go away!”</p>
<p>“You won’t get rid of me so easily, my lady,” Anna said firmly. She knelt on the bed, reaching for Mary, who immediately wrapped her arms around her so tightly that she gasped.</p>
<p>“I saw him, oh, God, I saw him!” cried Mary. “He’ll come for me—he’s waiting—”</p>
<p>“There’s nobody else here,” said Anna, trying to push Mary back into a reclining position. “I swear there’s no-one. If you’ll just—”</p>
<p>“He’s there, he’s there!” insisted Mary. “I just saw him move—oh!” She suddenly gave a shriek.</p>
<p>A door banged open, and footsteps pattered down the hall. <em>Oh, God, no,</em> thought Anna.</p>
<p>The door cracked open. A candle in a holder cast a wavering, small circle of light, showing Sybil’s face. Her eyes were heavy-lidded with sleep, her long brown hair plaited over one shoulder.</p>
<p>Thank God it was Sybil, thought Anna. She couldn’t have faced Edith’s nasty curiousity or Cora’s steely resolve at that moment.</p>
<p>“She’s all right,” said Anna, holding up a finger to her lips for silence. “It’s only a nightmare. Please, my lady—leave me with her. I’m sure I can get her back to sleep-- I can help her best.” She prayed that Sybil wouldn’t ask any further questions.</p>
<p>“You’re right,” whispered Sybil. “I’ll leave you then—but please, call me if you need any help.” She pulled the door shut.</p>
<p>Anna turned back to Mary, breathing a short, silent prayer of thanksgiving. Perhaps her mistress would already be settling back to sleep, she thought hopefully.</p>
<p>One look at the other woman’s face told her that such was not the case.</p>
<p>“Go away, tell him to go away!” Mary said in an agitated whisper. She kept staring at the corner of the room near the door.</p>
<p>“He’s not there. No-one’s there. It’s only a nightmare—” Anna tried again. Then she gasped when Mary seized her hand in a paralyzing grip.</p>
<p>“Look! See!” Mary hissed, raising her other hand to point a trembling finger.</p>
<p>Anna followed Mary’s eyes. The corner was dim and empty, except for a chair. A bit of light spilled in from the full moon through a crack in the curtains at the window, just enough to see that there couldn’t possibly be anything or anyone else in the room.</p>
<p>At least…</p>
<p>At least, Anna <em>thought t</em>here wasn’t.</p>
<p>Was a shadow moving?</p>
<p>Was a shape taking form?</p>
<p>
  <em>No. Impossible. </em>
</p>
<p>Creak.. creak… creak….</p>
<p>The rocking chair moved back and forth.</p>
<p>The movement could have been caused by anything. Sybil’s footsteps disturbing the floorboards. The slight movement of the bed when Mary sat bolt upright. It could even be a trick of the light.</p>
<p>Or…</p>
<p>Or it could be the shade of a dead lover, waiting patiently for a touch to bring him to life, whatever life might mean for one who had departed.</p>
<p>A cold wind blew through the room. Mary’s hand in hers was like ice. She was making soft, pleading little moans low in her throat. <em>It’s true,</em> Anna thought for a mad split second. <em>Mr. Pamuk’s ghost is here. He’s waiting for Lady Mary, ready to take her away!</em></p>
<p>Then the gust of wind rattled the windows, and Anna shook herself free of that awful moment. The window was just slightly open, she could see now. That was where the perfectly natural wind had come from. Mary still had one of her hands in a death grip, but she reached up with her other hand and flipped the switch on the wall next to the bed. She had to nerve herself to do it, because she wasn’t entirely sure if this new electricity was safe, but this was no time to be squeamish.</p>
<p>The harsh light that flooded the room instantly dispelled any thought of ghosts. The rocking chair in the corner was clearly empty, still rocking slightly from the perfectly natural gust of wind. No-one else could possibly be in the room, it was empty except for the two of them. Anna’s fears of less than a minute earlier seemed foolish.</p>
<p>“There. You see?” she said firmly. “There’s no ghost, my lady.”</p>
<p>Mary did not reply, and her eyes remained fixed on the corner of the room. But Anna was able to persuade her to lie down, to close her eyes, and finally to go to sleep. At last, she flipped the switch to turn off the glaring light, left the room, and went back to her own bed.</p>
<p>It was only when Anna was finally dropping off to sleep that she realized the truth.</p>
<p>She remembered the first long, shrill, despairing scream, the one that had sent her leaping out of bed and hurrying to Mary’s room. She could almost hear in her head even then.</p>
<p>The problem was that nobody else seemed to have heard it.</p>
<p>And a scream that loud and piercing should have woken half of the household. If it actually had been loud enough for Anna to hear all the way up in the servants’ quarters, it certainly would have done.  But nobody else had been disturbed at all, not until Mary’s second shriek had brought Sybil hurrying to the door.</p>
<p>And this meant…</p>
<p>“It wasn’t real,” Anna whispered to herself. Or at least, the first scream couldn’t possibly have been real in the normal world. The ordinary world.</p>
<p>The shadows in the corner.</p>
<p>The shape that Mary had seen, even if she herself had not.</p>
<p>But then, Anna hadn’t wanted to see it. Whatever it was, whoever it might be.</p>
<p>Anna clenched her teeth until a pain shot through her jaw. At least it was a real pain. She clenched her hands into fists as Mary had done earlier, feeling the rough cotton of the sheets catch on her fingertips. She held a sheet up to her face to sniff the aggressive, nostril-curling tang of bleach. If she listened hard enough, she could hear Gwen’s faint snuffling and snoring. All of this was, had to be, real.</p>
<p>The first scream, the shadows, the softly rocking chair—these things, then, could not be real.</p>
<p>And yet, in their own way, they all had been.</p>
<p>But why? Her exhausted mind refused to let go of the nagging question. Even if the spectral visitor was nothing more than a shared delusion between herself and Lady Mary, why would the death of Mr. Pamuk be enough to trigger it? The Abbey was many hundreds of years old; she’d heard that the foundation of one of the chapels had been laid before William the Conqueror crossed the channel to set foot on English soil. Hundreds of people must have died here, over the centuries and even millennia. But even though there were whispered stories about veiled spirits drifting through the aisles of a church at midnight and sobbing transparent ladies throwing themselves off the highest turrets, Anna had never seen a ghost.</p>
<p>Why would this one death cause her to think she had? Was it only guilt? If so, what deed did that guilt encompass? And why,<em> why</em> had Mr. Pamuk died in the first place?</p>
<p>It was almost impossible to sleep after this, but Anna somehow managed it. Her last thought before drifting off was that no matter what she had thought earlier, forgetting what had happened the night before might not be possible at all.  </p>
<p>00000000000000000000000000000000000000</p>
<p>A/N: The plot thickens! There’s much more in the next chapter, though, so that’s all I’ll say for now… 😉</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Morning Without Memory</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>A/N: A/N: Thanks to all readers, reviewers, and kudo-ers, especially: pixieferry and Starliam.</p><p>0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000</p><p>Oh she's rose up and let him in,<br/>And she's kissed her true love cheek and chin;<br/>She's drawn him between the sheets again<br/>And she opened and let him in oh.<br/>Oh then she has blessed the rainy night,<br/>Cold haily windy night;<br/>Oh then she has blessed the rainy night<br/>That she opened and she let him in oh…</p><p>“Oh soldier, soldier, stay with me?<br/>And soldier soldier, won't you marry me?”<br/>“Oh no oh no that ne'er can be<br/>So fare thee well forever.”<br/>Oh then she has wept for the rainy night<br/>Cold haily windy night;<br/>Oh then she has wept for the rainy night<br/>That she opened and she let him in oh…</p><p><em>Cold Haily Windy Night, trad., </em> <em>collected by Baring-Gould in southwest England</em></p><p>
  <strong>MONDAY</strong>
</p><p>Anna ran a brush through Mary’s hair in the morning, the dark glossy strands seeming more vital and alive than the woman who sat staring into the mirror at her dressing table. She had no idea what to say, or do. Mary had barely spoken a word since Anna had woken her.</p><p>“Oh—do you need to pull so hard?” snapped Mary, wincing.</p><p>“I’m very sorry, my lady,” said Anna, teasing out the knot in her mistress’s hair more gently.</p><p>“it’s not your fault,” Mary sighed. “I’m the one who ought to be sorry. I… didn’t sleep well last night.” But she said nothing more as Anna began to roll her hair into a simple chignon.</p><p>“I had a nightmare, I think,” Mary finally said when Anna was helping her into a draped blue morning gown.</p><p>“Oh?” Anna asked, doing up the buttons on the back.</p><p>“Yes. Nothing more,” Mary said, flatly, swiftly, not looking to either side. “I’ve got a bit of a headache, that’s all. Could you get me something for it, Anna?”</p><p>“Of course.” Anna went downstairs to the stillroom and found a vial of distilled willowbark tincture, thinking rapidly all the while. She honestly couldn’t tell if Mary remembered the screaming nightmare or not. Either way, what would be the best thing to do now? She herself surely ought to pretend that nothing had happened, that she hadn’t run to Mary’s room at three in the morning, driven by a cry that no-one else heard. That they hadn’t clutched onto each other in terror as a rocking chair creaked slowly back and forth in the corner of the room. That she herself hadn’t dreamed about Mr. Pamuk the night he died.</p><p>These thoughts should have seemed silly in the bright morning sunlight, but somehow, they did not.</p><p>Mary drank the vial down, grimacing at the taste. “I always forget how dreadfully bitter willowbark decoction is… ugh.” She glanced in the mirror, patting at her hair. “The last thing I need is a headache hanging on all day, though.”</p><p>“You surely don’t,” said Anna, deciding that the best choice was likely to agree with Mary in anything she said.</p><p>A soft rap came at the door, and it opened to reveal Cora standing in the doorway.</p><p>“Oh—Mama. What do you want?” asked Mary, in a voice that was not the most courteous she had ever used, in Anna’s opinion. <em>Not that I don’t understand why!</em></p><p>Cora walked in and shut the door firmly behind her. “I’d like to remind you, Mary, that Cousin Matthew and Isobel are coming for dinner tonight.”</p><p>Mary turned round in her chair. “What?”</p><p>“Surely you remember,” said Cora. “They were asked several days ago. Your father wants to discuss a few things with him.”</p><p>“Mother—<em>no</em>,” said Mary, paling even further.</p><p>Cora turned to Anna. ““Will you excuse us?”</p><p>“No, Anna, don’t go,” said Mary hastily.</p><p>Anna hesitated, looking between the two, Mary’s pale, trembling face and Cora’s set, stern one.</p><p>“I might check some things in the dressing-room,” Anna said. “I thought that one or two petticoats might need mending. I’ll go and make sure.” Before another word could be said, she slipped into the large dressing-room at the far end of the room and closed the door.</p><p>She should do exactly what she’d said, and she knew it. Anna had been meaning to look through dresses and skirts to identify which required mending. Anna ought to busy herself with her work and shut her ears to everything else. But she did not. Instead, she stood with her ear to the closed door. With each passing moment, she was angrier at herself for spying, but she did not stop doing it.</p><p>“But surely we’re going to cancel that,” protested Mary.</p><p>“No, we are not.” Cora moved to grip the back of Mary’s chair. Her daughter dropped her eyes before Cora’s steely gaze in the mirror.</p><p>“I…I can’t.” Mary made a helpless gesture.</p><p>“You can and you must. Mary, you need to present yourself as unaffected,” said Cora in a voice of iron, scarcely gentler than the one she had used two nights before. “If you continue to drift about the house looking pale and wan, if you go on with this business of walking alone and keeping to your rooms, then people will begin to talk. That is the last thing we need. Matthew and his mother will come to dinner tonight, as planned, and you will be ready. No, I wouldn’t have chosen for this to happen just now, but--”</p><p>“Mama…”</p><p>Cora raised her voice just slightly and went on. “But your father issued the original invitation, and I am not going to draw attention to the situation by countermanding him. Or by trying to cancel and reschedule. Have I made myself clear?”</p><p>Anna remembered Cora’s furious whisper two nights before, as the three of them had stood in this very room. The words seemed to ring in her ears again, just as harsh, every bit as unforgiving. <em>I feel now that I can never forgive what you have put me through this night. I hope in time I’ll come to be more merciful. But I doubt it. </em></p><p>“Yes, Mama,” said Mary in a near-whisper.</p><p>When Cora left, Anna gave Mary a few moments to sit by herself and then opened the dressing room door.</p><p>“Anna, I won’t insult your intelligence by pretending you didn’t hear that conversation,” Mary said in what Anna had long termed her brittle voice. “So Cousin Matthew is coming to dinner tonight. How perfectly <em>lovely.</em> Something to look forward to.” She pulled a sarcastic face, but a bit more color was in her cheeks. “Let’s choose a pretty gown later on, shall we? I won’t give—<em>that man-</em>- the satisfaction of looking like the Lady of Shalott just before she threw herself out the window.”</p><p>“I don’t know why Mr. Crawley would be particularly happy with that,” Anna ventured.</p><p>“Oh—I don’t know.” Mary waved a hand. “He would love to catch me off guard, that’s all. He’s that sort. So I’ll rest up today and be in tip-top shape by the hour to dress for dinner.”</p><p>Anna nodded. She would never tell Mary, of course, but she’d wanted for months now to see those two get together. Playing matchmaker or even dropping slight hints was the worst possible thing to do, though. Far too much of that sort of thing had gone on before the moment those two had first met, from all the hints and clues she’d heard. Mary could not be led or driven; it was astonishing how little her family seemed to understand that. The surest way to put her off something was to insist that it was perfect for her—even if it so clearly was.</p><p>Anna neatened Mary’s room after she went down for breakfast, making the bed, fluffing up the pillows. She could not stop thinking about what had happened in the wee hours of the morning, no matter how hard she tried. </p><p>Maybe it meant nothing, she told herself again and again. Maybe a nightmare reliving the events with Mr. Pamuk was only natural, unavoidable, that such a thing would happen only one day after a catastrophe like the one that had befallen them all. Perhaps this was the end of it, and the difficulty had worked itself out in some way.</p><p>But she already had a sinking feeling that it had not, and what was more, that she wouldn’t be able to forget what had happened to Mr. Pamuk, and what she had been forced to do as a result. The vows to forget, the ones that had seemed so solid and real the day before, had blown away like dust in the wind today.</p><p>The morning slipped by. After lunch, Anna helped Mary to change into an afternoon tea gown, tidied her shared room a bit, and then took the opportunity to go downstairs and sit in the servants’ hall with some mending she had meant to do the day before. Two of Mary’s petticoats really did have drooping hems. It was peaceful to sit at the long table with a silk stocking and a glass darning-egg in its toe, plying the fine needle with its silk thread back and forth. The soothing motion quieted her whirling thoughts a bit, and she worked on. Almost without realizing it, she began to sing.</p><p>“<em>I am stretched on your grave<br/>And I’ll lie here forever<br/>If your hands were in mine<br/>I’d be sure they would not sever<br/>My apple tree my brightness<br/>It’s time we were together<br/>For I smell of the earth<br/>and I’m worn by the weather</em>—”</p><p>“You sing very beautifully,” said a male voice in her left ear.</p><p>She jumped half out of her seat.</p><p>Bates smiled at her and took the seat across the table, a pair of trousers over one arm.</p><p>“Thank you,” she said, a bit flustered at his nearness. “Er—do you know the song?”</p><p>“Oh, yes, My Irish grandmother used to sing this song to me. <em>Táim sínte ar do thuama.</em> She spoke the Gaelic, which I don’t remember. But the translation… yes, I think I do.” He cocked his head, as if trying to recall something long forgotten, and then began to sing in a rich, deep baritone.</p><p>“<em>When my family thinks<br/>That I’m safe in my bed<br/>From night until morning<br/>I am stretched at your head<br/>Calling out unto the darkness<br/>With tears hot and wild<br/>My love for the girl<br/>That I knew as a child.”</em></p><p>“She’d sing me to sleep with that song, when I was very small. She had a small thatch-roofed cottage in Connaught, and I remember the scent of the peat fire… a kettle whistling on the hob… years and years ago, when I was a child. An eternity ago,” he said, smiling faintly.</p><p>Anna could imagine him, a robust child with tousled dark hair and those flashing hazel eyes, his face full of mischief and fun… as he surely must once have been. Before whatever it was happened that had changed him-- and brought that changeless sadness into his eyes. Whenever he flashed one of his smiles, though, she could see that child again. She wondered if she could make him smile now.</p><p><em>I’d like to try</em>, she thought, feeling rather daring. In the past week, the two of them had seemed closer than ever before, bonding over their shared desire to encourage Gwen in her goal of finding another job outside service. Although she could never be sure if the warmth in his eyes and voice were real or imagined on her part. </p><p>“I always thought the song was a bit macabre, though, don’t you think?” he went on.</p><p>Anna shivered. “I suppose it is. One really doesn’t know how the girl died-- from the words of the song, I mean. Was it an accident? An illness? Or did she—I mean, did he, the singer of the song-- kill her?” She could hardly believe that the words had come out of her mouth until it was too late to take them back.</p><p>Bates looked at her a bit oddly, and she flushed. “I’ve never wondered about that before, but now that you mention it, I think you’re right. We know that his love is dead, but we don’t know why, or who was responsible. But the singer seems to feel a sort of guilt, doesn’t he?”</p><p>Anna nodded, then sewed for another moment.  “Mr. Bates…” she began, not at all sure how to continue the sentence, the question, or whatever it really was.</p><p>“Hmm?” He was beginning to brush at the spot on the trousers.  It would make more sense for him to go somewhere with running water, the boot room, most likely, Anna realized. <em>Perhaps he wants to be here with me, talk to me. I know I’d like to be here with him. And we don’t even have to speak. He just needs to give me that smile of his… </em></p><p>He moved a bit, shifting his weight to his other leg, and he winced.</p><p>“Are you all right?”</p><p>“Perfectly,” he said in a tight voice.</p><p><em>He’s not. Oh, I do wish he’d tell me what’s the matter.</em> But Anna already knew that there was no point in pressing him about whatever it was that had clearly been bothering him physically in recent days.</p><p>“Do you think…” She hesitated.</p><p>“At times, I do manage it,” he said, one corner of his mouth decidedly curving up.</p><p>Anna flushed, but she went on. “Do you think that when something terrible has happened, the cause will be somehow brought to light? Only that seems to be what the singer is afraid of, don’t you think?”</p><p>“Perhaps he is,” said Bates. “I don’t know. Perhaps he’d be more relieved if it did.”</p><p>“But that doesn’t mean it was his fault,” Anna went on quickly.</p><p>“No, but it isn’t always about faults, or about fairness,” said Bates, his face settling into hard lines. “Sometimes tragedies simply happen, don’t they?” He looked across the table, but not at her. He seemed to be looking inward, at a long string of sadness and tragedy, and she wondered what he was thinking about. The war? She knew that he’d been Lord Grantham’s batman in the Boer Wars, because that was why Bates was here as a valet at all, when he couldn’t serve as an extra footman or carry valises up and down the stairs. Some days were better than others in that regard, and he scarcely used a cane at all. Some days—such as that most recent week—he clearly felt the wound. What had that war done to him, and what had it meant to him?</p><p>“Mr. Bates?” she ventured. Again, she did not know what she was going to add, but she wanted to take that hurt lost look from his eyes more than anything in the world. And she knew that this was a dangerous desire to have.</p><p>He shook himself and smiled. “Odd talk for such a fine spring morning, don’t you think?”</p><p>“I suppose it is.” Anna forced herself to give a light laugh. “That was like to be the last hunt they’ll hold here, by the way. They’ll go up to London very soon for the Season. Parliament will be in session, you know. So Lord Grantham will be there, and all the ladies will spend a month shopping before the Season really starts.”</p><p>“How long will they be gone?”</p><p>“Three months at least.  We’ve got the house to ourselves in the meantime, and there’s a deal of work to be done in turning out the rooms and polishing the silver, but there’s a bit of time for fun as well. Outings, and such… walking out…”</p><p>“I suppose you have a young man,” said Bates, not quite looking at her.</p><p>Anna hoped that she wasn’t blushing. Although the statement had not been phrased as a question, she had a feeling that it actually was one—if she chose to answer it. The true answer would be no, at least from her point of view. Although there was a young man in the village who was rather pestering her lately, that locum of Dr Clarkson’s. She wondered if he’d heard about that. Bates had never struck her as the gossipy sort in the months since he’d come to work at the Abbey. He seemed to keep himself very much to himself, too much so from her point of view, if she were to be honest. But there was no keeping secrets among any downstairs staff. She would sound a perfect fool if she firmly denied it when Bates had already heard rumors.</p><p>“I wouldn’t say that,” she temporized.</p><p>“Wouldn’t you?” Bates raised his eyebrows. “You ought to have one. You’re a young woman, and… and you should have a beau.” He seemed to be speaking with some effort. Anna had no idea how to reply.</p><p>“Well, er…” she began. How had they ended up leaning so close to one another from opposite sides of the table?</p><p>She broke off at the sound of heavy footsteps galumphing down the stairs. Anna stifled a sigh. There was no mistaking the tread of William’s feet, and whatever might, or might not, have been brewing at that table between Mr. Bates and herself had died a’borning. Still, he was a good lad, earnest and forthright, plain and honest as the day was long.</p><p>“So the poor Turkish gentleman’s long out of the house by now, I s’pose?” he asked, plopping down into a seat. “Only I was just wondering, like.”</p><p>““They’ve taken Mr. Pamuk out yesterday at about noon, I heard,” said Bates. “It slipped my mind. I meant to let all of you know.”</p><p>“Oh,” said William.</p><p>“Yes, I’d heard that as well,” said Thomas. Anna almost jumped. She hadn’t seen him coming down the stairs or heard his footsteps; he must have been a bit behind William.</p><p>“Must you sneak up on people like that?” she asked sharply.</p><p>His dark eyes flickered to her with a deliberately bland expression, or at least it seemed that way to her. “You’re a bit jumpy.”</p><p>“You gave me a turn appearing out of nowhere, that’s all.” She returned to her darning, stabbing the needle through the stocking.</p><p>“Perhaps you’re a bit distracted,” he said. Then, with the air of one graciously changing the subject, he moved to lounge at one end of the table.  “Yes, I know about Mr. Pamuk being long gone by now. But there’s something a bit odd about it, from what I’ve heard.”</p><p>The air suddenly turned cold. Anna knew all too well that Thomas was like a terrier with a rat when he got his jaws into a mystery. Given the slightest hint, he could put together an astonishing amount on his own. Was there any way to distract him? Anything she could do, or say? No, any reaction on her part would only make things worse. But then, wouldn’t it be even more suspicious to not react at all? Oh, why couldn’t Thomas and William both just get back upstairs where they belonged?</p><p>“What d’you mean?” asked William.</p><p>“They didn’t take him to Grassby’s straightaway, I heard,” said Thomas. “But to the doctor.”</p><p>“What was Dr. Clarkson going to do?” asked William, clearly taken aback. “I mean to say…a bit late to help him by then, innit?”</p><p>“I’d say,” Thomas went on. “Seems a bit odd.”</p><p>“I don’t know why you want to keep talking about this, Thomas,” said Bates.</p><p>“I keep my eyes open for anything a bit out of the ordinary, that’s all,” said Thomas. He turned to Anna, which was exactly what she had been hoping he would not do. “Tomorrow’s your afternoon out, isn’t it? You ought to ask your young man about this, Anna. He might know something.”</p><p>“Mr. Smithson isn’t my young man,” said Anna.</p><p>“Oh? He seems rather sweet on you.”</p><p>“He’s a deal sweeter on me than I am on him,” said Anna quite honestly. “And he’ll be off at the end of the month anyway. He’s only a temporary locum, to help Dr. Clarkson for a bit.”</p><p>“As you say.” Thomas shrugged.</p><p>He couldn’t know anything, Anna reminded herself. Nobody could. She was letting her imagination run away with her, and that was all.</p><p>But she couldn’t stop thinking that if she couldn’t get herself under control, someone might just figure out too much—and Thomas was a prime candidate for that activity. </p><p>“I s’pose you do have to wonder why Dr. Clarkson would do it,” said William.</p><p>“Yes, one does wonder, doesn’t one?” Thomas asked in rhetorical fashion, moving nearer to Anna. He was like a sleek, handsome cat slinking around the table, she thought. “Cutting someone open to find out what’s really wrong… not what I’d call an appetizing thought. There must be a very good reason, I should think…”</p><p><em> Don’t react, don’t move a muscle, don’t let him know anything might be wrong, </em>Anna chanted in her head. How much longer could she keep a completely blank face? For that matter, how could she possibly keep up the act for the next… well, how long could Thomas’s suspicions last? Bates was flashing a glance at her too, although she couldn’t guess what he might be thinking.</p><p>At that moment, Mrs. Hughes entered the room. “This doesn’t sound the least bit like proper conversation at the moment to me,” she said sternly. “One day after an unfortunate incident. Quite in bad taste, I should say.”</p><p>“Yes, Mrs. Hughes,” said William, although he’d had very little to do with the grisly turn of conversation. Which was quite typical of William, thought Anna.</p><p>“Anna—you are wanted upstairs,” she said.</p><p>She nodded, feeling more grateful to Mrs. Hughes for the interruption then she hoped she was showing.</p><p>“Come to think of It,” William was saying as Anna started up the back stairs, “my Uncle John was ninety-eight years old. When he dropped dead after reading his book, I mean. Poor Mr. Pamuk couldn’t have been thirty. Bit queer.”</p><p>“Ah, well, there’s ‘nowt queer as folk,’ as they say,” Bates said lightly. “I don’t suppose we shall ever know.”</p><p>“Shan’t we, though?” Thomas raised an eyebrow.</p><p>Anna hurried to the top of the stairs as fast as she could go. </p><p>She was glad to escape. Thank God that at least O’Brien hadn’t been there at that moment, but Thomas’s poking and prying was more than enough to be going on with. <em>Of course, he’s bound to tell her later on. What a pair! </em>At least William couldn’t know anything; that was one blessing. If he did, she had no doubt at all that Thomas would get the information out of him in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.</p><p>+++</p><p>A/N: Next chapter: Anna gets a little too curious about the guest room where Mr. Pamuk was sleeping… and she finds a clue. 😉</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The Man Who Wasn't There</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers! 😊</p><p>Yesterday, upon the stair,<br/>I met a man who wasn't there<br/>He wasn't there again today,<br/>Oh how I wish he'd go away.</p><p>When I came home last night at three,<br/>The man was waiting there for me<br/>But when I looked around the hall,<br/>I couldn't see him there at all!<br/>Go away, go away, don't you come back any more,<br/>Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...</p><ul>
<li>Antigonish, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hughes_Mearns">William Hughes Mearns</a>
</li>
</ul><p>
  <strong>Monday: 3:00 p.m. </strong>
</p><p>Anna tapped on Mary’s door. “You wanted something, my lady?”</p><p>“Yes,” called Mary. “Come in, Anna. I think I’ll walk in the gardens for a while.” She rose from her dressing-table.</p><p>Anna flipped through several walking-out dresses in the wardrobe and chose a simple white shirtwaist and hunter green skirt. She unbuttoned Mary’s tea gown, slipped it off, and laid it on the bed. The skin on the back of Mary’s neck was pale as milk, and Anna could feel her slight trembling as she relaced the corset loosely in the back.</p><p>“Would you like me to come with you?” she asked, carefully not adding anything along the lines of <em>just in case you faint and fall onto the ground.</em></p><p>“No. I want to be alone.” Mary held out her arms for the blouse. “I’m not even quite sure why I’m doing it, except that I need to walk somewhere . There’s no point in going down to the village, and Mama made it clear that she wants us all here in time for tea. So the gardens would be best for an hour or two, don’t you think?”</p><p>“Mm.” Anna helped Mary into the skirt. She had long since learned that when her mistress began to talk in that rambling way, she didn’t really want much of an answer.</p><p>“Anyway, where else would I go? What would I do? Post a letter to a cousin? Choose my own embroidery thread at the dry goods shop?”</p><p>“I don’t know, my lady,” said Anna, placing a small pink bow tie at the neck of the shirtwaist.</p><p>Mary gave a brief, bitter laugh. “There aren’t many options, are there? Girls like me—there’s not much we can do. We don’t really have lives until we marry. We’re in a sort of waiting room. We pay calls and stitch embroidery samplers and paint dreadful watercolors that nobody wants.”</p><p>Anna could think of nothing to say to that. She helped Mary put on stout walking boots. The ground might be muddy outside, she thought.</p><p>“I won’t be gone long,” said Mary, giving a final pat to her hair. “But if I don’t walk somewhere, I think I’ll go mad. Perhaps it will tire me out. I haven’t been sleeping well, you know.”</p><p>Anna nodded. She knew that, all right.</p><p>“I’ll be back in time for tea,” said Mary, and she started down the corridor towards the staircase, her movements hurried, almost feverish.</p><p>Anna picked up the shoes Mary had been wearing and noticed that one was scuffed around the heel. She knew a trick with shoe polish and a bit of stale bread that should get that right out, so she headed down for the kitchen. As she walked along the passage at the base of the service stairs, Mrs. Hughes stopped her and held out a set of boot hooks and a nightdress.</p><p>“You left these behind in the Blue Room, when you were dressing Lady Mary for the kill,” said the housekeeper with a distracted look.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hughes,” said Anna. “I thought I’d—oh!” She now saw Bates behind her, leaning on a table, his face deathly pale.</p><p>“Are you all right?” she asked.</p><p>“He is not all right and he will not tell me why,” snapped Mrs. Hughes.</p><p>“A man’s got to have some secrets,” he said, forcing a grim smile.</p><p>Why? And what are they? And can’t you tell them to me, even if to nobody else in the world? Even if Mrs. Hughes had not been watching them with an eagle eye, Anna would have stabbed herself with a boot hook rather than voice any of those questions.</p><p>“But he can have too many,” she said, looking into his eyes, which were carefully blank. He gave nothing away, and she realized that he would not give in, no matter what.</p><p>“I’ll leave you to Mrs. Hughes, then,” she finally said, continuing down the corridor in the direction of the kitchen.</p><p>Anna had a quick cup of tea and went to the boot room, getting out a basin. She swiped at the scuff marks on the shoe with a piece of stale bread and then bent down to hunt for the matching shoe polish. Footsteps passed the half-open door.</p><p>“I could do with a quick smoke, right enough,” said Thomas’s smooth voice.</p><p>“Let’s go out, then,” said O’Brien.</p><p>“I don’t mind if I do.”</p><p>Anna held her breath until they passed by. She wished she could follow the two miscreants straightaway, but one of them would hear her for sure. After she heard the outside door fall shut, she stole noiselessly down the corridor, her heart pounding. It sounded as if the door hadn’t quite closed all the way.</p><p>Sure enough, the door was open just a crack. Anna slid against the wall and peered out into the kitchen yard.</p><p>Thomas and O’Brien were smoking and talking intently to each other, but she realized with a sinking heart that it was impossible to clearly hear anything they said. She could only catch snatches of their conversation at best.</p><p>O’Brien was asking a question; she could tell that by the look on her face and her raised eyebrows. Thomas gestured with his cigarette and said something in response. Whatever it was, it seemed to make O’Brien think for a second. Then she shook her head slightly.</p><p>“Yes, I do.” Thomas raised his voice loud enough for Anna to make out what he was saying, and her hopes lifted briefly. Unfortunately, he lowered his voice right after those words, and O’Brien had been speaking quietly from the very beginning. Anna could hear almost nothing.</p><p>“—what I mean is—” That was O’Brien.</p><p>“—but how else—” That was Thomas. And then, “—I don’t want to get—”</p><p>“Don’t worry. You won’t,” O’Brien finally said clearly, and then dropped her tone again. Anna sighed in silent exasperation.</p><p>After a few more minutes in which the two seemed to have tacitly agreed to be quieter than ever, she gave up . <em>I’d never make it as a spy,</em> she thought ruefully. <em>But still—I’ve got to wonder if those two really do know anything. Or perhaps even worse, if they’re trying to find out whatever there is to know. What an unholy pair they are!</em></p><p>
  <strong>MONDAY: 6:00 P.M.</strong>
</p><p>Anna hurried up the back staircase and through the green baize door, hoping that she had time to change both Edith and Sybil well before dinner so as to leave the lion’s share of time for Mary. She’d dawdled much too long over tea, trying to figure out what Thomas and O’Brien might have been saying to each other out in the yard. It was a pointless exercise. She hadn’t heard enough to make sense of it.</p><p>Except…</p><p>Well, except that they’d clearly been talking about something that they both believed was important.</p><p>Could it possibly have anything to do with the mysteries surrounding Mr. Pamuk?</p><p>Knowing those two, of course, the subject could have been anything. <em>As long as it involves an attempt to make trouble for somebody else, that is! It’s impossible for either one of them to know anything about… about what happened to Mr. Pamuk. It must have been something else. Maybe they were trying to come up with the nastiest way for Thomas to go on teasing Daisy.</em></p><p>And yet…</p><p>One thing about the entire mystery kept nagging at Anna’s mind. (Well, several things, if she were to be honest with herself; but this was the point that she couldn’t seem to get out of her head.) How had Mr. Pamuk been able to find Lady Mary’s room in the first place? She somehow didn’t think he’d been wandering aimlessly about the manor until he happened to run across it. And Anna knew that Mary hadn’t invited him. So how did he know? Did someone show him? And if so… who else might be involved?</p><p>Anna sighed and stopped in front of a door. It only took her a moment to realize that it wasn’t her mistress’s door, and that she was not in the family wing of bedrooms at all. Her feet had taken her to the bachelor’s corridor, to a guest room. To the one that had been assigned to Mr. Pamuk.</p><p>As she stood staring at the door, the great church bell rung the hour.</p><p>One… two… three… four… five… six.</p><p>The gas jets overhead in the ceiling were turned down low. Lord Grantham had been talking about having electricity installed in the guest wing, Anna remembered. She wished he had. Electric lights were flat and harsh, illuminating every corner clearly. The gas cast a dappled pattern of light and shadow over the corridor. Some areas were bright, some dark. The door before her stood in a pool of shadow. She stared at the oak paneling, trying not to see the pattern of a face. But there it was. Two eyes… a nose… a ripple of a mouth…</p><p><em>Sss. Sss.</em> The gas jets hissed softly above her.</p><p>“I’m leaving. Right this moment,” she said aloud.</p><p>Instead, as she had known she would do, Anna pushed the door open.</p><p>The drapes were drawn, and the room was dark. If there were only a light switch on the wall, but these bedrooms hadn't been wired for electricity yet. <em>Anything could be hiding in the shadows… oh, don’t be ridiculous! There’s nothing in here. It’s only an empty room. But, wait… then why did I come in at all?</em></p><p>A thin, muted shaft of light spilled across the carpeted floor, surrounded by shadows. The last time she’d been in this room, two nights before, she’d barely noticed anything about it. Desperately struggling to haul a dead man down a hall before morning came was not the best situation for assessing details of the décor. She noticed so many more things now.</p><p>The red wallpaper, stamped with dark maroon designs. The red and gold Persian carpet, its strange patterns writing like tortured snakes. The bed with its massive dark oak carved headboard… the bed where they had left him lying, where Mary had tried to close his eyes, but he kept staring up at the ceiling…</p><p>And in the corner, a shadowy shape, like an animal crouching. She saw it out of the corner of her eye and would not look closer.</p><p>Anna began to move towards the window. Each step seemed to take an eternity. She had to walk past whatever was in the corner. It must be a normal, natural thing, some item in the room that she just didn’t remember. A dressing table. An ottoman.</p><p>
  <em>Ottoman… Mr. Pamuk was from the Ottoman Empire, wasn’t he, a son of the sultan’s minister, that faraway wicked land with harems and dancing slave girls and handsome sultans, and oh, dear God, what nonsense I’m thinking….</em>
</p><p>Was there a shape in the chair? Something long and sprawled, sculpted chest gleaming, dark hair tumbled over a high forehead? Eyes staring at the ceiling…. Staring… Open, motionless…. Or were they?</p><p>She had to walk past the thing in the corner or she would never get to the window. The distance seemed infinite.</p><p>Did she hear a whisper, no more than a thread of sound eddying from the corner?</p><p>
  <em>Oh, my darling… Trust me. And I promise you a night you will never forget-</em>
</p><p>One step. Another.</p><p>The shadowy shape suddenly moved.</p><p>Anna bit her lip until it bled and kept going. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered except getting to that window and opening the drapes to the saving sunlight, whatever was wrong or unnatural in that room surely had to vanish in the sun, like a vampire at dawn, almost there, almost there—</p><p>She almost screamed as she stumbled, almost falling over an edge of the rug. But she was here, blessedly at the window, and she reached up a trembling hand and snatched back the red velvet drapes.</p><p>The early evening March sunshine flooded the room, banishing every shadow. The dresser and bed were stolid and harmless, bathed in golden light. Anna swung round to face the corner, feeling much braver. The thing she had seen was, of course, a chair. An ordinary, empty, straight-backed chair, medium carved oak with red upholstery.</p><p>Anna had rarely felt so foolish. She was almost angry with herself. This kind of nonsense might be all very well for Daisy, but she was a grown woman. She was succumbing to vapors and fancies for no real reason.</p><p>She walked around the room rather aimlessly. There was nothing to see, as she’d known there wouldn’t be. And there was really too much to do to be mucking about in a spare bedroom, even if there had been any reason for her to be here in the first place, which there wasn’t. She would leave immediately.</p><p>She ran her hands along the top of the dresser instead. Nothing there in particular, of course. A crystal decanter placed behind a small mirror was empty now, although Anna had a dim memory of glimpsing a brown liquid in it on the night they’d carried Mr. Pamuk through the halls and laid him on the bed. Brandy, I suppose, and the decanter was washed.</p><p>She began opening drawers, angry at herself because she couldn’t give up her search for something, a nything, some sort of a clue, not even knowing what she might be searching for or what she hoped it might mean.</p><p>Something rattled in the back of the dresser.</p><p>Anna pulled out the bottom drawer, sat on the floor, and rummaged around in the back. Her hand found something small and hard. She took it out and saw a long glass vial filled with a dark liquid. There was no label, and she had no idea what it might be. She unstoppered the top and sniffed the bottle, but she was no wiser afterwards. Recorking it, she slipped the vial in a pocket of her apron.</p><p>“I don’t see why I need to change so early,” Edith said fretfully as Anna searched the wardrobe in her bedroom a few minutes later.</p><p>Anna somehow didn’t think that it would be a good idea to tell Edith that she wanted to take more time with dressing Mary tonight. “What about this one, my lady?” she said instead, holding out a draped blue jersey gown from the back of the wardrobe.</p><p>Edith looked at the dress, and her eyes softened, making her look suddenly pretty. She had the sort of face that varied dramatically with her mood, which meant that most of the time during the past year, she had looked very plain. She held out a hand to touch the material of the skirt. The soft, rich periwinkle tint flattered her milky coloring. But she shook her head.</p><p>“No. I last wore that dress for… for Patrick. I remember when he came here for the last time, at Christmas. Ages ago. It was only a year and a half, really, but it seems an eternity. I don’t understand why… This dress was his favorite. I thought so, anyway.” A rueful smile touched her lips. “He probably never noticed it at all.“</p><p>Edith’s peevishness melted into genuine sadness whenever she talked about Patrick Crawley, the late heir. Anna knew the reason. Edith had loved Patrick, but she had always needed to keep that love hidden, and so she did. She knew that he was marked for her older sister, who only cared for him as a cousin. As Mary herself had said to Anna on the day the Titanic went down, “But you see, I’m not as sad as I should be. And that’s what makes me sad.”</p><p>This tragic triangle was why, even though her loyalty was primarily to Mary, Anna could never truly feel angry with Edith for her dislike of her beautiful, self-assured sister. Anna knew how deeply Edith had really been wounded by the loss of Patrick Crawley. Mary did not understand, and never would; perhaps she couldn’t, where Edith was concerned.</p><p>“Well—what about the light green?” asked Edith, breaking into Anna’s thoughts. The dress in question was a frilly, yellowish confection that gave Edith an unfortunate resemblance to a frog. Nothing about it suited her-- not the chartreuse color, not the billowy cut, not the girlish ruffles.</p><p>“Maybe the nice pink silk with the lace trim?” Anna ventured to suggest.</p><p>“No. I want that one.” Edith stabbed a finger at the frothy dress. Anna wondered if she could get away with burying it in the garden some dark night. For now, though, there seemed to be no help for it.</p><p>After finishing with Edith, Anna moved on to Sybil. The youngest daughter was silent as Anna helped her change and adjust her foundation garments so that they would support the pink silk dress she would wear for dinner. But when Anna moved on to the corset, Sybil spoke, a bit tentatively.</p><p>“You know Gwen pretty well, don’t you?” she asked.</p><p>Anna nodded. “Yes, my lady, we’ve shared a room for over two years. Is the corset too tight?”</p><p>“No, not really—I mean, sometimes I think it is, but it’s likely to be more that I’m so tired of wearing these old corsets all the time.” Sybil grimaced. “I was reading about the Ballet Russe just last week, and the dancers had the most wonderful outfits. Harem pants, I think they were called. It didn’t look like one of them could possibly have been wearing a corset.”</p><p>“Sounds a bit shocking,” ventured Anna, adjusting Sybil’s camisole.</p><p>“Well, anyway…” Sybil made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “About Gwen…”</p><p>“Yes, my lady?” Anna realized that Sybil was circling round something.</p><p>Sybil took a deep breath, or as deep as she could, considering that the S-shaped corset had been laced a bit tightly. “I know about her shorthand classes, and about the typewriter.”</p><p>“Er…” Anna suddenly became very busy with the draped lace Bertha collar surrounding the neck of the pink gown.</p><p>“Oh, don’t worry, Anna,” Sybil reassured her. “I think it’s wonderful that she wants to work as a secretary. I’m going to help her; I already told her so. I’m only talking about it because Gwen seemed to be hinting that you knew about it.”</p><p>“I do, my lady,” said Anna, deciding that honesty was by far the best policy here.</p><p>“Will you help her, if it comes to that?” asked Sybil.</p><p>‘Of course I would,” said Anna. “I don’t know what sort of help I might be able to give. But if I can, I will.”</p><p>“That’s good to know,” said Sybil warmly. “Gwen really wants to do it. Anna, you’ve known her for two years, and you certainly know her now better than I do-- do you think she can?”</p><p>Anna thought for a moment. “Yes, my lady, I believe that if anyone can manage it, then she’s the one. I’ve talked to her about it many a time by now. She’s quite serious. She spent a good bit on the typewriter and the shorthand classes.”</p><p>“I’m glad,” Sybil sighed. “It’s so perfectly exciting. Don’t you think?”</p><p>“I suppose so.” Anna draped the skirt, settling its gored lace panels so that they flowed nearly around Sybil’s legs. She felt a bit dubious, although she tried not to show it. What Gwen wanted—well, she was happy for her because she did want it, and she felt that working below stairs had never really sat well with the younger girl. Yet Anna wasn’t quite sure if perfectly exciting were the words she herself would have used.</p><p>“I mean it,” insisted Sybil. “she’s going to be out in the business world, working at a new job in a whole new field, making her own money, working for herself. I wish I could do the same… You don’t think you’d ever leave the same way, would you, Anna?”</p><p>Anna thought again, harder this time, wanting to give an honest answer.</p><p>“No, my lady, I don’t. I like my work. I like the people ( well, most of them, she amended, but only in her thoughts.) I’m well paid. I don’t need to get married if I don’t want to. I can stay in service and be independent in my own way.”</p><p>“Really,” said Sybil. “I never thought of it like that. But I suppose you’re right.” She looked into the mirror as Anna arranged her hair in a loose chignon at the nape of her delicate neck. “I can see what Mary has to go through. She’s constantly being ordered to marry the man sitting next to her at dinner,” said Sybil, giving a small giggle. “I don’t want that. I want to marry for love, and nothing else.”</p><p>“That sounds a bit radical, my lady.” Anna fixed Sybil’s glossy brown hair in place with silver pins.</p><p>“P’raps it is. But really, Anna, do you think you’d ever want to marry? What if the right man did come along?”</p><p>Before Bates had come to Downton, Anna would have laughed off the suggestion, because that was exactly what she had done whenever more or less the same question was asked of her. But now he had come there. Now she saw him every day. And even if she imagined the sparkle in his eyes when he spoke to her, the warmth in his voice, even if any interest in her from his end was no more than her fancy, she didn’t know if she could quite give the same answer. There was no future in it, of course, no hope, so maybe it was better, really, if he didn’t feel those things. “I don’t know,” she finally said.</p><p>Sybil nodded, seeming to leave the subject for the time being. “Oh, Anna, I meant to ask you-- Is Mary well?”</p><p>“Yes, of course she is,” said Anna.</p><p>“Truly? She was so upset at tea,” said Sybil. “She actually fled the room in tears.”</p><p>“She’ll be fine. She was only shocked by Mr. Pamuk’s death,” said Anna, deciding to go with a half truth.</p><p>“So were we all. I wish mama wasn’t insisting on this dinner,” said Sybil. “We’re really not up to it. None of us are, but especially not Mary.”</p><p>Anna both wished and thought the same, but she only nodded guardedly.</p><p>“I’ll try to hold Edith back a bit so you have time to dress Mary and get her ready properly,” said Sybil, and their eyes met in complicity. Although Sybil couldn’t possibly know anything of the real truth, thought Anna. <em>And thank God for that!</em></p><p>The dressing gong rang just as Anna tapped at Mary’s door. She had helped Mary to change into a dressing gown an hour before for a nap, just after she returned from the village, too late to take tea after all. Mary sat up, looking a bit refreshed. But Sybil was right; she still did not look outstandingly well.</p><p>“It’s funny, isn’t it. I found it easy to sleep with light spilling in the windows,” said Mary. “I remember when I was a child, I was afraid of ghosts. Isn’t that silly?” She did not wait for an answer. “You weren’t at Downton yet, of course, Anna. I’d imagine ghosts in the corridor, spectres on the stairs—all sorts of nonsensical things. I used to nap during the afternoon; I was the only one in the schoolroom who didn’t mind Nurse sternly ordering us to do so. Edith would whine; Sybil would try to make peace between us…” She grimaced. “Some things never change. But I would always drop off right to sleep. I remember in winter, in the afternoons, there’d be a bit of a moon in the sky. It was called a children’s moon; it showed during daylight, so it was safe and friendly. I’m mumbling a lot of silly rubbish, aren’t I?” She put a hand to her forehead.</p><p>“Are you quite well, my lady?” asked Anna.</p><p>“Yes, yes, I’m all right,” said Mary.</p><p>Anna dressed her in a draped ivory crepe de chine gown the color of candlelight through silk. Halfway through, she wondered if the blue organdie might have lent more color to her cheeks, but it was too late now. She wished that Lady Cora wasn’t so insistent on keeping the dinner invitation for that night. If nothing else, it was going to have to look odd when there had been a death so recently in the house, even though it was of a guest who had nothing to do with them.</p><p>“I did see Cousin Matthew in the village today,” Mary said suddenly, apropos of nothing as far as Anna could see.</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“Yes. It was around four, before I came back and rang for you. I think the coral beads, by the way, and could you dress my hair a bit low on my neck tonight-- I asked if we were expecting him so early, and he said no, He said he looked for me yesterday at church—the nerve of him. I came out and asked him why he was here, which I suppose was a bit forward of me. He said that he’d only wanted to say that he was very sorry what happened. And if there was anything he could do, I had only to ask. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that he could go and jump in the lake.” She made a face.</p><p>“But was he… nice?” Anna ventured, when it didn’t seem as if Mary would say anything more.</p><p>“Oh—yes. I suppose he was perfectly pleasant,” said Mary.</p><p>“Then perhaps this dinner won’t be so bad,” ventured Anna.</p><p>“Mmph.”</p><p>Anna knew what was almost certainly going on in her mistress’s head. She had encountered Matthew Crawley, and he had not been a sea monster. Their conversation had been smoother and easier than she had thought it could possibly be. She had seen something good in him which could not be denied—gentleness, perhaps, and unlooked-for understanding. He had surprised her, wedging his way just the tiniest bit past her formidable defenses. And perversely, the experience had made her more determined than ever to dislike him.</p><p>“But it was enough,” Mary went on. “We exchanged a few agreeable words in the afternoon. Why must he come to dinner in the evening?”</p><p>The question was not a rhetorical one, and it lingered uneasily in the air. Anna knew why the dinner was taking place as planned, and she knew that Mary understood its purpose just as well. But the ghost of Mr. Pamuk hung between them. Anna resolutely avoided looking in the corner, where she knew the chair sat.</p><p>“Anyway, I can’t say I’m looking forward to this, but I won’t give Matthew the satisfaction of letting him know--” Mary broke off speaking as the door opened.</p><p>“Not quite ready yet, I see,” said Edith by way of greeting.</p><p>“Anna is just finishing off my hair,” said Mary, continuing to look in the mirror.</p><p>Edith crossed the room and sat on the edge of the window seat, to one side of Mary and Anna at the dressing table.</p><p>“So I gather Cousin Matthew will be here for dinner with his mother,” said Edith.</p><p>“Clever as always, I see,” said Mary, patting at a curl of dark hair over her brow.</p><p>“It seems a bit fast,” Edith went on.</p><p>“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”</p><p>“But I suppose, since Evelyn Napier wasn’t impressed, it’s best to start again with--” began Edith.</p><p>“I don’t know about Mr. Napier, but I wasn’t bowled over,” said Mary, cutting her sister off. With some relief, Anna could see that Mary was going to give nothing away.</p><p>“Cousin Matthew didn’t seem overly impressed last time,” said Edith. “It’ll hardly seem in very good taste to be chasing after him, not even a week after there’s been a death in the house. Even though it wasn’t as if we knew poor Mr. Pamuk, it still seems a bit—you know.”</p><p>Anna knew, all right. Mary paled, but she recovered quickly. Her face was perfectly impassive as she turned her head, running a critical eye over Edith’s unfortunate choice of dress.</p><p>““I thought you weren’t going to wear that dreadful pale yellowish green again,” said Mary. “You look positively anemic, Edith. Maybe you ought to go back to taking Blaud’s Pills.”</p><p>“I’m fine. If anyone looks ill, it’s you,” snapped Edith.</p><p>She was right, thought Anna. Oh, I wish she’d just have a tray in her room.</p><p>The door opened again, and Anna was devoutly glad to see Edith and Cora coming into the room. The relief was short-lived, however.</p><p>“I was just saying that Mary looked rather faint,” said Edith. “What do you think, Sybil?”</p><p>“She looks lovely in that ivory dress,” said Sybil in her sister’s defense.</p><p>“But pale,” persisted Edith. “Don’t you think so, Mother?”</p><p>“I’m perfectly all right.” Mary looked sidelong at Cora.</p><p>“Yes. You are,” Cora said decisively. “And now we will all go down to dinner.”</p><p>Watching the three walk out of the bedroom and start down the corridor, Anna was irresolute. She couldn’t help but notice how unwell Mary indeed looked. She was swaying slightly, her jaw clenched, a bright smile pasted on her face. Anna wished she could run to her side and support her, but that was not a way that a lady’s maid ever behaved. If there were ever a time to make an exception, however, this would seem to be it. But what was she supposed to do, turn up in the dining room and lurk just behind Mary’s chair to catch her in case she fainted? I can just imagine how much Mr. Carson would love that! Then the group moved down the stairs, and Anna lost sight of them.</p><p>She tided the room a bit, hanging up the walking clothes that Mary had been wearing, smoothing the bed. As she turned to leave, Anna scanned the room and noticed that something seemed odd. Something was off, as if an item might be missing. But she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, and there was no time to spare when her worries for Mary were taking up so much of her thoughts. Oh, if only Lady Cora hadn’t insisted on inviting the Crawleys to dinner… Sighing, she headed down the corridor and towards the back stairs to the servants’ hall.</p><p>A/N: As you can see, things are getting more interesting all the time! 😉 Here's my take on the Edith/Patrick story, and this will come into play with my next fic in the Secrets of Downton Abbey series. If you read the script book for Season 1, I think it’s made extremely clear that Edith really loved Patrick, much clearer than it was on the show. Some key lines and even scenes were cut that emphasize how deeply she really felt. I wish that Julian Fellowes had been able to successfully fight to keep the extra material, because without it, Edith’s motives for a lot of her behavior are never as understandable as they should be. (Her later reaction to Peter/Patrick during the war also makes a lot more sense if you know what was cut early on.) Later in the series, JF would have much better luck with keeping important parts of the script in what was actually filmed and used. But in the first season, especially early on, some things were cut that should have been included. The missing evidence for the depth of Edith’s feelings for Patrick was probably the best example.</p><p>Because Anna had to go to the guest bedroom to find a mysterious clue in the dresser, we didn’t quite get to the dinner in this chapter. But it’s coming up next in Chapter 6, along with some Mary/Matthew fireworks.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Suspense by Candlelight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A/N: Thanks to all readers, reviewers, and kudo-ers! 😊</p><p> </p><p>At Downton Abbey, dinner was a well-oiled machine. Whether a simple meal for the family, an elaborate production for guests, or somewhere in between, it all rolled along as neatly as the engine of a train, churning out asparagus soup to vol au vent, lamb roasts to puff pastries, candied fruits to claret.</p><p>But not tonight.</p><p>There was something frantic about the kitchen, the hall, the act of serving everything up the stairs and into the dining room. Every word and action seemed to teeter on an uneasy edge. The kitchen maids were bumping into each other. Anna watched the frantic workplace, wondering why she didn’t just go upstairs and work on some plain sewing that needed to get done. With only two guests, and those being family themselves, they didn’t need her help. She might come down after dinner to help clear away, but there was really no reason for her to be here now. Yet she’d stayed, drifting towards the stairs that led up towards the dining room. Now, Anna found herself hovering near the base of the stairs, craning her neck whenever Thomas and William carried up a tray and then opened the door. Each time, she could see the briefest glimpse of the dining room itself. But there was never more than a flash of an empty table.</p><p>Still, she kept craning her neck to look up the stairs during the brief moments when the door swung open. She was really trying to catch a glimpse of Mary. If only she could see her mistress. If she could just get a glimpse of her face. Anna couldn’t forget how pale she’d looked, and how unsteady she’d been on her feet.</p><p>Mrs. Patmore’s head appeared from round the corner that led into the kitchen. “Is someone planning to take up the tureen, or do you think the turtle in the soup is going to grow back its legs and crawl up the stairs on its own?</p><p>“Sorry, Mrs. Patmore,” said Daisy with a jump. She handed the serving dish to Thomas.</p><p>“And he’s a grown man, I suppose he can lift a soup tureen onto a tray. No need to wait on him hand and foot like a Turkish sultan!”</p><p>Daisy’s eyes widened. Was it just her imagination, wondered Anna, or had the younger girl turned a shade paler? “Sorry!”</p><p>There was something about dinner tonight, a frantic edge, a disturbing undercurrent. It was as if everyone knew that something was wrong, even though nobody quite knew what—or at least Anna hoped that was the case. Even when they didn’t really know, couldn’t know, they knew. They all felt the tension thrumming through their bones.</p><p>“Take the pithivers. No, not that tray, the other one-- Oh, what’s <em>wrong </em>with everyone tonight?” Mrs. Patmore asked of nobody in particular.</p><p>That was the question, all right, and Anna knew it. She just hoped that nobody was anywhere close to figuring out the answer.</p><p>“Daisy! Have you been hypnotized?” the cook demanded. Daisy jumped.</p><p>“Sorry, Mrs. Patmore!” she blurted, placing the platter of ham pithivers on the table</p><p>“Silly baggage, you haven’t got the sense you were born with!” the cook called after Daisy as she fled.</p><p>Something large and hard bumped into Anna’s back.</p><p>“Sorry, Anna!” whispered William as he passed her. “Didn’t mean to run into you like that. I’m all at sixes and sevens tonight, dunno why.”</p><p><em>And thank God you don’t,</em> she thought. <em>Thomas would be sure to get it out of you otherwise!</em></p><p>“Hurry it along a bit, can’t you? I’d like the family to have the chance to eat dinner sometime before next year!” growled Mrs. Patmore.</p><p>Anna watched Thomas and William start towards the stairs with platters and trays, knowing that she’d get nothing more than a maddening split second’s view of the dining table once they opened the door at the top. She could think of no good excuse to head up the stairs to a location where she could have a better view. She often lent a hand to clear the table after dinner, but that would hardly help her now. Every once in a while, she went to the small service pantry at the top of the stairs and helped with managing some of the dishes right before they went out to the table, but that was only when there were large dinner parties. There was no reason for her to go up there tonight; it would only look odd. It wouldn’t have helped her cause anyway. The view from the small pantry was little better than from the bottom of the stairs. Even when the door was opened, the view directly faced the fireplace in the dining room, not the table. She wouldn’t be able to stay in the pantry, which she would need to do in order to have any chance of finding out everything that went on curing dinner. But it was completely impossible to find out anything from where she was standing now, at the base of the stairs. There was no way to keep an eye on Mary.</p><p>Unless…</p><p>
  <em>Anna Smith, this idea is absolutely mad, and you’ve gone round the twist. </em>
</p><p>As the two footmen passed Anna, she timed it perfectly, and she walked rapidly just behind them. As she had hoped, nobody immediately noticed her. Everyone was too focused on their own role in the mad dinner preparation scene, too distracted by the disturbing undercurrents they all felt. And this was so unlike anything that a maid was ever supposed to do that nobody would even think to look for her—for the moment, at least.</p><p>There was a back recess in the landing at the top of the stairs, almost a cubbyhole, and Anna stopped there. It might even have been a very small extra pantry at one time.  If everyone hadn’t been so distracted, she didn’t think she would ever have gotten away with staying there. But with the strange atmosphere circulating downstairs that night, she thought that she just might manage it. If she could sneak up to the front of the landing at intervals, she might at least be able to hear what was going on in the dining room. She would dart back into the shadows whenever anyone passed her, but not before getting a quick peek through the open door so she could check on Mary.</p><p>Anna edged out further towards the landing, still being careful to keep out of the light. William and Thomas would be headed back at any second, as she well knew. Cautiously, she peered up towards the dining room. The door was slightly ajar, and she was at exactly the right angle for a good view of the table. For a moment, she enjoyed the sight. She’d so rarely seen the table set for dinner, much less the family and guests seated round it.  There was no reason for her to do so; serving the food was no part of her job. Housemaids would take over that office at about the same time that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse came riding up the drive, if Carson had anything to say about it.</p><p>The night had turned quite chilly, and flames crackled in the fireplace. The candles sent shifting light over the table, as the small lamps on the sideboard softly illuminated the entire room, warming the tones of the glossy walnut table, glinting off the crystal and silver and china settings so perfectly laid. The Hepplewhite chairs were neatly arranged, the sideboard polished, and the soft tones of the figures in the beautiful paintings looked approvingly over the perfect scene.</p><p>Then the doors opened and everyone began to come in. Mary and Matthew walked side by side, moving towards the end of the table that was closest to the door leading downstairs. Anna could hear every word although they were speaking softly, and the illusion of peace was swiftly shattered. </p><p>“Are you quite well, Cousin Mary?” asked Matthew Crawley.</p><p>“Perfectly,” Mary snapped. “I don’t need help.”</p><p>“You’re the soul of courtesy tonight, I see,” he muttered under his breath, nonetheless loud enough for Anna to hear. She stifled a horrible whoop of laughter.</p><p>Mary sat on the side nearest the door that led to the top of the stairs. Robert was pulling out a chair for Lady Violet, who walked in as briskly as if her cane were no more than a prop. Cora sat next to him, with Isobel Crawley next to her. Sybil sat to one side of Matthew and Mary to the other; Edith was next to Sybil. Anna had a perfect view, focused on Mary and Matthew but framed by the table as a whole. Her heart thrilled. She’d be able to see and hear everything!</p><p>It was all going very well until she heard the gruff voice behind her.</p><p>“Anna, <em>may </em>I ask precisely what you are doing at the top of the stairs?”</p><p>She turned, knowing who she would see, and sure enough, it was the glaring face of Mr. Carson.</p><p>“Er—” she began.</p><p>“Standards may be a bit more difficult to keep up in these modern times, but we are not yet driven to replacing footmen with housemaids,” he said sternly.</p><p>“Yes, Mr. Carson. It’s only that…”</p><p>“It’s only that what?”</p><p>Anna thought rapidly. She had seconds to convince Carson, if that. The only hope was to tell him at least a partial truth, she decided. “Lady Mary has been a bit faint all day long, Mr. Carson. I’m rather worried about her.”</p><p>“She hasn’t looked quite well today, has she?” murmured Carson with concern. His eyes softened when he talked about Mary, which was about the only time they ever did.</p><p>“No, she doesn’t. My lady might be coming down with—er—something. A bad spring cold, maybe… I’m concerned for her. She <em>would </em>insist on going to dinner,” Anna improvised. “I begged her not to, but she only became more stubborn. I’m afraid she’ll faint halfway through the salad course. I don’t want to be stuck somewhere downstairs, ten minutes from getting up here. I want to be close enough to help her right away if anything happens, without delay.” She held her breath.</p><p>“I suppose I can see your point,” said Carson after some deliberation. “Very well. This time, and this one time only, I will permit you to stand at the back of the landing until dinner has ended so that you may be available at once if you are needed. But we will not make a habit of this. If Lady Mary’s faintness continues, Dr. Clarkson ought to be called.”</p><p>“I quite agree,” said Anna. “And I won’t be any trouble, Mr. Carson.”</p><p>“See that you are not. And do try to keep out of sight.” He walked off, muttering something that seemed to be in his usual vein of <em>what is this world coming to, in my day, there once were standards</em>, and so on. Anna breathed a sigh of relief.</p><p>When Thomas and William carried the dishes up the stairs, coming right behind Carson, Anna wedged herself as far back in the corner as she could. The light was so dim, and they were concentrated on their work. There was no reason why they should see her, no reason at all to turn around and stare into the back recess. But she held her breath when Thomas passed her. In some ways, his catching her on the stairs would be far worse than the incident with Carson, who at least believed that he knew exactly why she was spying on dinner. Thomas was a different matter entirely. She knew what he was like once he got into a suspicious mood; she’d had more than enough chances to find that out over the years they’d worked together, although she had to admit that he’d never been as bad as in the past six months or so. Something had embittered him even further, although she had no idea what. It seemed to have started around the time that the Duke of Crowborough had come to Downton for the failed attempt to match him with Mary. Thomas had soured after that incident as swiftly as milk spoiled in the sun. His main interest seemed to become causing trouble for everyone, in every way he could. Every little detail out of place became a clue to Thomas, and he had a way of piecing scraps of information together to form an unwelcome picture. Anna did not know why, but she certainly knew that his surly attitude was a new and unwelcome reality. </p><p><em>I’m just going to have to take the chance</em>, she thought. <em>I’ve got to know what’s happening, I have Carson’s permission to try to find out, even though he didn’t know that’s what he was giving, and I won’t back out of it now.</em></p><p>Carson pulled the door shut last, except that he didn’t quite close it all the way. He left it slightly ajar, the crack large enough so that Anna would be able to see everything. She was almost sure he gave her a slight nod on his way back into the dining room. Thomas was serving the first course. He stepped right in front of the door for a few moments, so Anna had time to think.</p><p>It was so strange. She had never really seen dinner being served except in glimpses. She was perfectly aware of how unusual the situation was. If Carson hadn’t been so worried over Mary, he would never have allowed Anna herself to have this opportunity. And that fact in itself made her shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the drafty landing. Carson was worried, much more than he was letting on. He instinctively knew when something was seriously wrong where Mary was concerned, and she trusted his judgment on that score. But then, that was because of his connection to Mary. So Carson naturally felt that wrongness in the woman he cherished like a daughter, but please God, he could catch at no facts to go along with that instinctive knowledge.</p><p>Then Thomas moved to one side, and Anna had a perfect view.</p><p>“So—how are things?” asked Matthew in a vague way, helping himself to ham pithivers from the plate Thomas was holding.</p><p>Edith was watching him closely from a bit further down the table. “After the death of Mr. Pamuk, you mean?” she asked.</p><p>“I mean… er…” He blushed slightly, as if realizing that he had stumbled into an awkward subject that would have been much better left unmentioned.  Mary flicked her gaze down at her plate. Edith’s eyes narrowed just slightly. Sybil looked confused, glancing from one side to the next.</p><p>“It was terribly sad, of course,” Lady Violet said briskly. “But one must go on.”</p><p>“Yes. Certainly. It was very good of you to have us so soon after—er, what I mean to say is, I don’t want to push in…” said Matthew, seeming very flustered indeed. Mary glanced up for a moment and shot him a look.</p><p>“Oh, but surely when we’re <em>en famille </em>it’s all right,” said Cora. “It’s hardly a dinner party.” She smiled tightly, her eyes steely and determined.</p><p>“Quite right,” said Robert.  “Matthew, my dear fellow, do tell me—how are you getting along with that new, er, <em>job</em> in Ripon?” He seemed to think of the law firm in Ripon as a mere mirage, one that would vanish with a bit of work on the estate as surely as mist fading before sunrise. Anna wasn’t quite so sure.</p><p>“Quite well, thank you,” said Matthew with an air of relief.</p><p>“Oh goody, let’s talk about jobs. Then perhaps we can bring up <em>weekends,</em>” said Lady Violet under her breath, but she seemed relieved as well.</p><p>“I feel that I have a responsibility to my clients,” said Matthew. “I can’t simply abandon them. I’d feel very guilty.”</p><p>Mary looked uncomfortable, but she said nothing and busied herself with buttering her roll.</p><p>“And properly so,” said Robert, a bit awkwardly. “All I want is for you to become more familiar with the estate.”</p><p>“Of course. The partners are marvelous, and there’s some quite interesting work. A number of contracts are coming through for the new construction business in Thirsk,” said Matthew. “And Mother’s been spending more time in the hospital.”</p><p>“She has indeed,” said Lady Violet.</p><p>“And it’s been lovely,” said Isobel, eyes flashing.</p><p>“Oh yes, indeed, it most definitely has,” replied Violet. “Cousin Isobel is so frightfully well informed that I’m surprised she doesn’t take over from Dr. Clarkson entirely.”</p><p>Isobel flushed slightly. “I’d never dream of overstepping my boundaries in my sphere of knowledge as a nurse, of course.”</p><p>“Really?” asked Violet. “Then whatever your dreams are, they must be fascinating indeed.”</p><p>“Yes. Fascinating is the word,” said Isobel rather defiantly. “It’s a marvelous cottage hospital.”</p><p>“Oh, well, as long as it meets <em>your </em>standards, what more could one ask?" Violet smiled sweetly and took a long sip of turtle soup.</p><p>“I’ve always wanted to get more involved in the hospital,” said Sybil.</p><p>Robert frowned. “That wouldn’t be at all suitable, Sybil. I don’t want you exposed to, er…” He made a vague gesture with one hand. “That sort of thing.”</p><p>“What sort of thing?” asked Sybil.</p><p>“The sort you’d see at a hospital,” Robert said.</p><p>“If you mean people dying—” Sybil began.</p><p>“Sybil, you must listen to your father,” said Cora, putting down her fork. Sybil looked mutinous.</p><p>“I’m not sure when I’ve heard such appetizing dinner conversation,” said Lady Violet. “Isn’t it time for the main course yet? Perhaps we ought to concentrate on that.”</p><p>“Nursing has become quite respectable, Cousin Robert,” offered Isobel.</p><p>“Is it really?” Robert asked, looking thoughtful. “I’ve always thought the opposite.”</p><p>“Oh, no. It’s been a long time since it was a lower-class occupation. Nursing has moved far beyond scrubbing and carrying slop pails and rolling a few bandages at best.  Miss Florence Nightingale changed all that during the Crimean War. And I was a nurse, you know, in the Boer War.”</p><p>“What a marvelous recommendation,” Lady Violet said, taking a slice of roast lamb from the platter Thomas held out for her.</p><p>“It’s quite true,” said Matthew.</p><p>“I wish there were more female doctors,” said Sybil.</p><p>Matthew nodded. “There are a few, in fact. But they are few and far between. Perhaps someday the situation will be different. It’s a marvelous profession.”</p><p>Mary looked up from her plate with a bit more color in her cheeks. “I’m surprised you didn’t follow in your father’s footsteps and become a <em>doctor</em> as well.”  She spoke the word as if doctors were a step or two below bricklayers.</p><p>“I admire the profession, but it wasn’t for me,” said Matthew. “I’m fascinated by the law.”</p><p>“You work with business law,” said Mary. She tossed her head just slightly, so that the candlelight glinted off her glossy dark hair. “I’m not sure how fascinating that sounds to me.”</p><p>“Perhaps that isn’t always the word to use. But, I must say…” he hesitated. “There was a time when I actually would have rather liked to go into criminal law-- as a barrister, you know.”</p><p>“Yes, and Cousin Freddie is reading for the law at Lincoln’s Inn, I think he does want to be a barrister. It sounds so exciting,” said Sybil, eyes shining.</p><p>“I think so too, and yet when it came down to it, I didn’t quite want to have that life and death responsibility,” said Matthew. “I ended up in company law.”</p><p>“A better class of people, I hope?” asked Mary, tilting her head and looking sideways at Matthew.</p><p>“A better class of criminals, without a doubt.” Matthew smiled faintly back at her.</p><p>“Perhaps it’s not quite so thrilling as hunting down criminals at the Old Bailey,” said Mary.</p><p>Matthew laughed. “Perhaps not. But anything to do with the law is important, in every sense. Every case that has ever been tried is like a single strand of the law that has been built over so many centuries. And they bind together to form a rope that holds people, holds<em> all</em> of us, to justice. Whether it’s criminal or civil, it’s still justice.”</p><p>Mary fell silent and turned back to her roast lamb.</p><p>The discussion went on for several minutes, touching on Matthew’s partners in the law firm, upcoming trips overseas involving business contacts, and the social scene in the cities of Austria-Hungary. Anna studied everyone at the table. Mary was brittle and pale, speaking rather loudly when she did make comments, as if forcing herself to show a good face to the room. Edith was silent—for the moment, at least-- and suspicious, her gaze darting around the table, trying to settle on the source of the tension. Even Sybil, the peacemaker, looked worried. Robert was trying to be jovial but still ill at ease. Isobel Crawley  looked a bit subdued and uncertain. And Lady Violet, at the earl’s side… Anna didn’t know quite what to make of her watchful, wary attitude.</p><p>The conversation began to drift, Cora was saying something about palaces and princes in Montenegro and the Italian count of Bari that she had met on a European tour with her mother before she was married, and Anna rubbed her forehead. Her back was cramping from her half-crouched position at the back of the alcove, and she was beginning to feel foolish. Mary seemed quite all right now. Perhaps she was still a bit unsteady, but Anna really couldn’t picture her fainting halfway through the main course. <em>Maybe I ought to go back downstairs</em>, thought Anna. <em>If Thomas sees me up here, he’ll just become suspicious. God knows, he doesn’t need any help in that direction. </em></p><p>Then Sybil spoke.</p><p>“I heard that the vote on Albanian independence is this week,” she said. “It sounds quite exciting. The people of Albania have been ruled by the Ottoman Empire for so many years, and now they want to get rid of their oppressors.”</p><p>“Isn’t that the vote that poor Mr. Pamuk was going to cast?” asked Isobel.</p><p>The tension at the table suddenly grew. Anna couldn’t have even said how she knew this, but she did.</p><p>“Yes,” Cora said stiffly.</p><p>“It must be terribly important to the Albanians,” Sybil went on. “But what will happen now that Mr. Pamuk isn’t there? Is his vote crucial? I wonder if it could affect other things.”</p><p>Mary stiffened and turned pale again. Looking at her, Anna was instantly glad that she herself hadn’t gone downstairs.</p><p>“Sybil, this sort of conversation is very dull for everyone else who is forced to listen,” said Cora, a hint of an edge in her voice.</p><p>“I don’t find it dull at all,” said Isobel. “Turkey is a fascinating place.”</p><p>Edith flicked her gaze around the table, settling on Mary. “And some Turks are fascinating, too,” she said. “Aren’t they?”</p><p>Anna stifled a silent groan.</p><p>“Yes,” Mary said abruptly. “It is rather dull.”</p><p>“You didn’t seem to find conversation about Turkey dull at all last week,” put in Edith. “You were having quite the discussion with Mr. Pamuk, as I recall. He was saying that he thought you’d like to go.”</p><p>Cora shot her middle daughter a warning glance. “Edith…”</p><p>“I only meant that you seemed to be getting on so very well,” persisted Edith.</p><p>“Hold your tongue,” snapped Mary.</p><p>Edith blanched but did not back down to her sister. “If I’ve said anything wrong, I really don’t know what…”</p><p>Lady Violet watched her granddaughters closely from the other side of the table, her face impassive in the flickering candlelight. Anna dearly wished she knew exactly what the older woman was thinking.</p><p>
  <em>Just how much does old Lady Grantham know? And what does she suspect? And what would it mean if she did? Nothing gets past her, after all… </em>
</p><p>Isobel jumped in. “My husband once spent time in Turkey, during the reign of Abdulmejid I, and he told me a great deal about it. The Ottoman culture. It has an extremely long history, and was founded in 1299 by Osman I…”</p><p>Cora shot Isobel a grateful look as her cousin rambled on. For some reason, Isobel’s attempt at rescuing the situation made Anna a bit nervous.  Over the past year, she herself had figured out that Mrs. Isobel Crawley was not the most subtle of souls. Yet even the rather blunt, brash mother of Matthew realized that the conversation was headed nowhere good and was doing her best to divert it.  </p><p>Mary listened tensely, toying with a plate of orange sherbet. Anna realized that Matthew was watching her, and actually had been all through dinner. His observation was so subtle, so hard to catch, that Anna doubted anyone else had even figured out what was going on. But whenever Matthew wasn’t speaking, and whenever he believed that he would not be detected, his eyes returned again and again to Mary, like a magnet to gleaming metal. Mary sparkled in the candlelight, and Matthew could not seem to help watching the patterns of light and shadow playing across her ivory skin and glossy hair and pale, glowing dress. Every now and then, he cocked an eyebrow and looked faintly quizzical, as if he wanted to know more about the woman who lay behind that perfect oval face.</p><p>Anna could only pray that he wasn’t watching her closely enough to begin to wonder what had put the sadness in Mary’s dark eyes and the soft, downward curve to her pink lips. If he did, then Thomas and O’Brien’s scheming might be the least of all their worries.</p><p> </p><p>A/N: After the Pamuk incident, there was quite a stretch of time when we didn’t see Matthew’s interaction with Mary. But I have a hard time believing that the tension between them died down immediately. I think that there would have been a few dinners like this one… but hopefully without as much intrigue behind the scenes. And there’s still a lot more to come in the next chapter…</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. A Tense Conversation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”<br/>― Sherlock Holmes ( Arthur Conan Doyle,<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1214700"><em>The Boscombe Valley Mystery</em></a>)</p><p>A/N: There MIGHT be a couple of clues in this chapter to how everything will play out in the end… 😉</p><p>Thanks to all readers, reviewers, and kudo-ers!</p><p>++++++++++++++++++++++</p><p>At last, the sweets were being served round the table. Sybil and Mary were already beginning to slide their spoons through the creamy pudding. It was one of Mrs. Patmore’s specialties, a deceptively simple recipe, sweet and delicious and flecked with vanilla bean. Anna was almost ready to take a final breath of relief. True, there had been plenty of rough spots. The dinner had been a minefield. But Mary had managed to avoid stepping directly into any of the traps. </p><p>It was all smooth sailing now, Anna decided. Mary was still paler than she would have liked, and she hadn’t stopped sparring with Matthew at every opportunity, but she was going to be all right. <em>I suppose there was never any need for me to be up here in the first place</em>, thought Anna. <em>Silly thing to do, really, when there was such a risk that Thomas would see me and wonder what was going on. But… I had to. Just in case. </em>This really would be the best time to leave, she realized. Thomas couldn’t catch her on the stairs if she was already downstairs in the servants’ hall.</p><p>“You must have seen the most amazing events,” Cora was saying in the dining room. She seemed determined to keep the Ottoman Empire conversation going until the ladies retired to the drawing room, and perhaps later than that.</p><p>“Oh, we certainly did,” said Isobel with enthusiasm, waving a spoon in the air, pudding clearly ready to fly off at any moment. “We were there in the middle of 1876, just before the Russo-Turkish war. Sultan Abdulmejid the Second had just taken power—the previous sultan died under very mysterious circumstances. He and his ministers were attempting to centralize the empire. They didn’t succeed, of course, or the war wouldn’t have happened. The Ottomans were a sad shadow of themselves even by then.”</p><p>Cora’s eyes were beginning to glaze over, but she pasted on a smile. “You must have met the most fascinating people!”</p><p>“Yes, my husband knew so many. The Russian chancellor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Gorchakov">Prince Gorchakov</a>, the American minister to Turkey, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Straus_(politician)">Oscar Straus</a>… Oh, and Lord Branksome,” said Isobel.</p><p>
  <em>Lord Branksome! </em>
</p><p>Anna froze. She remembered that afternoon, weeks ago now, when she’d brought Mary’s wrap to her where she sat with her mother outside. Mary had been telling Cora about a letter. She herself had overheard their conversation, thinking nothing of it at the time. But the words came back to her now.</p><p>
  <em>The letter was from Evelyn Napier, Mary said. Cora asked if that was Lord Branksome’s boy. And Mary said yes. </em>
</p><p>“Yes, we knew Lord Branksome rather well. He was in Turkey at the time,” said Isobel.</p><p>“You mean Evelyn Napier’s father?” Edith asked abruptly.</p><p>Anna stifled an audible groan just in time.</p><p>Isobel frowned, thinking. “I suppose he was. Is, I should say. He’s still alive, but he’s surely retired by now—he must be seventy, at least. He was in the diplomatic service.”</p><p>Robert’s brow furrowed. “Really? Are you quite sure we’re talking about the same man? Lord Branksome’s never been in the service as far as I know. He only ever talks about racing. Poor fellow has no other interest in life. He’s a bit of a dull dog, really.”</p><p>“No, I remember quite clearly,” said Isobel. “Now that I think of it, he talked a bit about his upcoming marriage to an Honorable Miss Callandra Grace Something-or-other.”</p><p>Cora gave a tiny choking sound.</p><p>Isobel went on, oblivious. “I’m rather good with names, you know. And I’ve always remembered that one, because it was a bit unusual.”</p><p>“Yes… wasn’t Callandra Grace his wife’s name?” Robert turned to Cora. She nodded, sipping at a glass of water and averting her eyes.</p><p>“So he <em>is </em>Evelyn Napier’s father,” said Edith, clearly swinging into action. “Such a charming man, Mr. Napier was. Although you didn’t seem to think all that much of him, Mary.”</p><p><em>Oh, God, no,</em> thought Anna.</p><p>“Not particularly,” said Mary with an expressionless face. “He was rather dull.”</p><p>“I suppose you’d think that he was, compared to <em>some </em>people who were visiting,” said Edith.</p><p>“We were with the Ottomans during the years just before the rise of Albanian nationalism, and, of course, they did rise in the end. Such an interesting time,” Isobel put in. She was clearly trying to change the subject, but if she were attempting to do it gracefully, it was already a lost cause.</p><p>“That poor Turkish gentleman who died, Mr. Pamuk… <em>he</em> was going to vote on the question of Albanian independence, wasn’t he?” asked Edith, glancing at Mary.</p><p>Violet suddenly spoke up in her most authoritative voice, overruling her granddaughter and everyone else. “Yes, I can certainly confirm that Lord Branksome was in the diplomatic service, because he worked with Patrick. My husband, that is; the sixth earl. I remember Evelyn Napier’s father well.” She sat very straight, the candlelight glinting red off the stones in her garnet necklace and winking in the matching earrings like giant faceted drops of blood. Lady Violet had a way of commanding a room when she chose, and she was summoning all that presence now. Edith fell silent.</p><p>“How fascinating, Granny,” said Sybil. “Where did you know him? Was it here?”</p><p>“No. They served together in Russia for several months, nearly forty years ago. It was a few years before his marriage.”</p><p>“Granny, does that mean <em>you </em>were there?” asked Sybil. </p><p>“Yes, I was. We were in St. Petersburg… it was in January of 1874, when Prince Alfred married the Grand Duchess Marie. Long ago…” For a moment, Lady Violet had a strange look in her eyes. Then she shook her head. “One of the perils of old age, remembering days gone by and allowing musings on the subject to continue past their proper date.”</p><p>“I’d love to hear about it. You’ve never told us. It sounds quite interesting, Granny,” said Sybil.</p><p>“No. It isn’t.” Lady Violet sounded quite decisive. “And Branksome was dreadfully dull. The topics of horses and racing and bloodlines are all very well, but they shouldn’t be the sole subject of one’s conversation-- as they definitely were where he was concerned.”</p><p>But the subject was decisively changed, and Anna breathed a sigh of relief. Robert immediately launched into a long, rambling story about the decrepit state of the west tower and the repairs required on it. Anna had long since lost track of the conversation by the time the he finished up with “Still, we mustn’t bore the ladies. We’ll speak of it later.”</p><p>“I don’t think that the restoration of the house is boring at all,” Mary said abruptly.</p><p>“Don’t you?” asked Matthew, turning his head to look at her. “Does architecture interest you?”</p><p>“I don’t know about that, but <em>Downton </em>interests me,” Mary replied. “Although I suppose it doesn’t matter, if it will never be mine!”</p><p>Matthew narrowed his eyes and seemed ready to open his mouth. The tension at the table instantly rose again.</p><p>“I’ve always heard that the one of the towers is supposedly haunted,” said Isobel in a determined-to-change-the-subject sort of voice, pushing back her dessert plate. “l’m not saying that I believe in ghosts, of course, but it’s quite an interesting story.”</p><p>“I don’t know… isn’t it the north tower that they say is haunted?” Sybil asked Cora, turning towards her mother.</p><p>“Yes, by the ghost of Jane Boleyn, I think,” said Cora, seeming relieved to be decidedly off the subject of both Mr. Pamuk and her oldest daughter’s animosity towards Matthew. “Or at least it’s supposed to be.”</p><p>“Oh yes, I remember her. I’ve always been quite fascinated by Tudor history. She was Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law,” put in Isobel. “And a woman who was really badly misunderstood by historians. Jane was blamed for betraying Anne when she only wanted to keep her rights to her family’s home.”</p><p>“I understand the feeling,” muttered Mary.</p><p>“There are supposed to be ghosts everywhere in this house,” Cora said dismissively. “I’ve never seen one. Let’s go through; I want my coffee.” She began to rise, as did the rest of the table. </p><p>“I thought I did see a ghost once,” said Sybil, pushing back her chair. “Only once, though. I’m sure it was all silly imagination, but still… it was in a place one wouldn’t expect. It happened in the corridor next to the guest room. Isn’t that odd?”</p><p>“Yes, it is,” said Edith. “I wouldn’t have thought a ghost would be there, of all places—oh!” She turned swiftly. Mary had already half risen to her feet, and a wild look came into her eyes. She suddenly swayed and tottered.</p><p>Without a second thought, Anna shoved the door open and rushed into the dining room. She barely registered all the astonished faces around the table before she was at Mary’s side, supporting her, helping her back into a chair, holding a glass of water to her lips, and breathing a sigh of relief when Mary sipped it.</p><p>“Mary, darling—” Sybil began. Edith looked stricken. Cora’s lips tightened, but she was rushing to her daughter’s side. The men had risen from their chairs and were pressing towards the tableau.</p><p> “I’m perfectly all right,” Mary said irritably, raising her voice over the hubbub. She waved a hand as if dismissing everyone, but especially Matthew, who had somehow got to her side before anyone else. “Don’t fuss at me! You know how thoroughly I hate a fuss.” She got to her feet, Anna supporting her and watching her anxiously. Her face was very pale, and her dark eyelashes fluttered against the circles under her eyes, but she was standing steadier now.</p><p>“Anna,” Matthew said at her elbow in an undertone. “How did you get in here so fast?”</p><p>“I… um…” Anna fumbled. What could she actually say in explanation?</p><p>Matthew shook his head, an understanding look coming into his bright blue eyes. “Never mind. It’s not important. But I’m so glad you’re here.”</p><p>Mary shot him a glacial look. “May I have Anna, please?” she hissed.</p><p>“Of course.” Matthew moved away.</p><p>“Stay near me, Anna, please,” Mary whispered in her ear.</p><p>The dinner party broke up soon afterwards, and Anna retreated down a corridor to the front hall once she saw Mary headed in that direction. She watched everyone leaving, her ears straining for scraps of conversation.</p><p>“Is Mary all right?” Violet was asking Cora.</p><p>“She said she was all right,” said Cora.</p><p>Violet gave something that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “My hearing is excellent, so I certainly heard what she <em>said</em>. But I know her; she’ll die where she stands before admitting a weakness.”</p><p>“Yes, she’s fine.” Cora waved a dismissive hand, but she avoided her mother-in-law’s eyes.</p><p>‘Hmph. You know…” Violet kept walking, drawing Cora beside her so that they were away from the others. ““He’s quite a pleasant young man, even with the matter of jobs and weekends. Of course I knew what he was talking about that night; it’s more properly referred to as a Saturday-to-Monday. I simply wasn’t familiar with the term <em>week-end.”</em> She spoke the word as if doing her best not to grimace when touching a slimy octopus.</p><p>“Oh. Well—yes. Of course he is,” said Cora.</p><p>Violet stopped and looked shrewdly at the younger woman. Anna held her breath, not so much because she was afraid either of them might see her in the shadows, but out of apprehension over what Lady Violet might say—or ask. <em>Nothing misses her,</em> thought Anna. <em>Nothing at all. She knows that something’s wrong.</em></p><p>“Well, we won’t speak of it any more tonight,” said Violet. “Does that odd new chauffeur have the car brought round yet?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Cora.</p><p>“I suppose I’ll ride with… Cousin Isobel.” Violet gave just the slightest shudder. “But where’s Matthew?”</p><p>“Still talking to Robert. But you can go along,” said Cora.</p><p>Anna stayed where she was after both women had left, but she was debating whether or not it was time to go upstairs and wait for Mary. <em>She did ask me to stay near her… even though I’m not entirely sure why. </em></p><p>She’d hardly finished the thought before the reason became clearer. Mary was walking down the corridor towards the front hall with Matthew, looking far from happy about it. They paused just outside the vestibule, and Anna had a perfect view of the two of them from her dim corner.</p><p>“Are you sure you’re quite all right?” Matthew asked her.</p><p>“Perfectly,” snapped Mary. “Don’t feel that you need to stop here any longer on my account. Your mother’s waiting in the car as well.”</p><p>“I can bicycle back,” said Matthew.</p><p>Mary gave an irritated click of her tongue.</p><p> “I suppose that’s not quite the done thing among the residents of Downton, but I’m very used to it.” He smiled faintly, then grew more serious. “But you do look so pale…”</p><p>Mary set her teeth. “You can make it the done thing once you’re in residence. But you don’t have Downton yet.”</p><p>He raised his eyebrows. “Cousin Mary, I never wanted this estate in the first place. Is it fair to try to make me suffer because of it?”</p><p>“I’d say it’s every bit as fair as Downton being snatched from me by a legal technicality,” said Mary.</p><p>“Can’t we at least be civil?” Matthew ran a hand through his hair, causing it all to stand on end. “We were doing all right this afternoon, if you recall.”</p><p>“I can be as civil as you like,” snapped Mary, in a tone that seemed to promise anything but the mentioned behavior.</p><p>“Mary. Please.” He put a hand on her arm. Her eyes widened. She looked like a trapped animal, something wild and beautiful and on the edge of breakdown or flight or both.</p><p>“I think we shouldn’t have come to dinner at all. I ought to have made some excuse. But I… I wanted to see you,” he said simply.</p><p><em>Tick, tick, tick.</em> The grandfather clock behind them counted down the seconds as they looked at each other.</p><p>Mary finally broke the silence. “I don’t mean to be a shrew, really. It’s only…” She gestured helplessly.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” said Matthew, and Anna could tell that he meant it. “Mary, I wish I could make you understand that I don’t want to cheat you of your inheritance. I never, ever have done. The truth of it is that I want nothing less. If there were some way to break the will, I would have found it. If I could somehow hand it all over to you, I would do so. If I could make you a countess in your own right, make you the true owner of Downton, I would do it. If there were a way,<em> any</em> way, I would take it.”</p><p>His words hung in the air between them. There was a way. Anna knew instantly that both of them had remembered it at the same moment. They could hardly help doing so. If Mary married him, then Downton would be hers, and she would be its countess. At first, the sheer perfection of this solution had aggravated Mary like the grit in the heart of a pearl. But as time went by, something had begun to change. It was tenuous, no more than a thread of possibility. And yet it was very much there, this attraction between Mary and Matthew.</p><p>If only those two had both seen and admitted this during the past months. If only it had happened before the previous Saturday night…</p><p>But the revelation had not happened. Instead, Evelyn Napier had come to Downton for a day of hunting with his Turkish friend at his side.</p><p>Now, the ghost of Kemal Pamuk hung between them. Anna knew it was there, Mary knew it was there, but Matthew did not. And she knew without being told that Mary would do anything to keep it that way. She was too honorable to catch him with a lie.</p><p><em>Oh, God, what a hideous mess!</em> thought Anna.</p><p>“I should get upstairs,” Mary said abruptly.</p><p>Matthew nodded and said something very quietly that even Anna’s excellent ears could not catch. Mary blushed slightly, no more than a faint pink stain across her ivory cheekbones. Then Matthew went out the front door, and Mary turned to leave in the other direction. After a few moments more, Anna followed her.</p><p>A/N: More coming soon! :) My goal is to have one chapter posted every week. We'll see how this goes... ;) but I'm planning to update this fic more often and more regularly than it has been. </p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. An Empty Chair</h2></a>
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    <p>She walks these hills, in a long black veil</p><p>She visits my grave, while the night winds wail…</p><p>Nobody hears, nobody sees, nobody knows but me…</p><p><em>Long Black Veil,</em> <em>Danny Dill</em> and <em>Marijohn Wilkin</em></p><p>A/N: Thanks to all readers, reviewers, and kudo-ers!</p><p>Important note: from now on, I’m going to try to update about once a week. It may not always be on the same day, but I’m aiming for Friday. Wish me luck! 😉</p><p>00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000</p><p>
  <strong>MONDAY NIGHT</strong>
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</p><p>“Thank God that dinner’s over,” said Mary as Anna unfastened her gown. “I suppose one can say that we did survive it. But that’s all.”</p><p>Anna nodded. There were times when Mary wanted a response, and times when she simply needed to let thoughts pour out of her, like water from a pitcher. This was one of those occasions.</p><p> “What a relief to get out of this corset,” Mary went on with a sigh. “I wouldn’t mind getting rid of these entirely, but I don’t suppose that will be happening anytime soon. I wonder if I could persuade that new seamstress in Ripon to make one of those new tube dresses for me…”</p><p>Anna made a noncommittal sound and took off the corset cover, leaving Mary briefly standing in her chemise and drawers before helping her into a voluminous white nightgown trimmed with lace. Mary sat on the edge of the bed, and Anna pulled out the pins from her hair and began to run a silver-backed brush through the long, dark waves.</p><p>For many long moments, neither one of them spoke. Mary’s eyes closed, and Anna brushed rhythmically, counting to one hundred strokes. Her eyes went around the bedroom, and her thoughts from the morning came back to her.</p><p>
  <em>Something seems different. It really does. But I don’t know what it is.</em>
</p><p>She ticked off the furnishings, one by one. Candlelight played over the familiar red and gold patterns in the wallpaper, sending flickering lights across the framed prints under glass. The long white lace curtains hung to the floor, partially covered by its old beige Aubusson rug woven in subtle pastel floral designs. The dressing table with its stool… one brown silk-upholstered chair by the window… one on the other side of the room…</p><p>Her gaze skipped to an empty corner. <em>But it shouldn’t be empty,</em> Anna realized. <em>Something was there yesterday.</em> <em>The red chair. And now it’s not.</em>  A wave of relief ran through her. <em>That </em>was what had seemed off earlier that day in the room, the minor difference that she hadn’t been able to put her finger on. Lady Mary must have asked Mr. Carson to have it moved, she decided. William had probably taken it out earlier that day. It was only an ordinary chair, of course, nothing more. But she remembered the previous night, when the patterns of light and shadow had moved across that chair… how it had seemed to rock on its own, impossible as that must be.</p><p><em>I’m glad it’s gone</em>, she thought.</p><p>Mary gave a great yawn. “I need a good night’s sleep—if I can manage it. I’m not so sure that I can, though.”</p><p>Anna looked at her sidelong. Did Mary remember anything about the terrors of the night before? She didn’t seem to, and Anna was certainly not about to be the one to bring up the subject first. <em>Much better forgotten.</em> She plaited Mary’s hair into a braid and tucked her into bed.</p><p>“Good night, my lady,” she said softly, and she headed down the hall to the back stairs and her own bed. Gwen was already snoring. Anna slipped between the cool sheets and was asleep almost before her head sank into the pillow.  </p><p>0000000000</p><p>Anna opened her eyes. She was staring directly at the window at the high, round moon. It couldn’t be more than a day or two from the full. The clock in the village church began to peal in the distance.</p><p>
  <em>One… two… three. </em>
</p><p>It was the hour of the wolf, her Cornish grandmother had always said. It was the time when unquiet sleepers were <em>hilla-ridden</em>, haunted by dreams and spirits they could not shake.</p><p>And she knew. Without a word, without a sound, without a real clue of any kind, she knew what was happening.</p><p>Anna got out of bed, noiselessly, and put on a wrapper, slipped her feet into soft shoes. She stole down the staircase and made her way along the silent corridor. She stood outside of Mary’s bedroom door for a few seconds, trying to gauge what might be happening behind it. There were no screams, as they had been the night before. But she heard something, like tiny gasping sounds. Carefully, she pushed the door open.</p><p>Mary stood at the far end of the room, hands clenched into fists. Her head whipped round towards the door.</p><p>“It’s you. It’s you, isn’t it?” Her voice was no more than a whisper. “You’ve come for me?”</p><p>Anna hurried forward. With one hand, she reached up and snatched candle in a holder from the mantelpiece above the cold grate, swiftly lighting the wick with a match.  The flame flickered up, lighting Mary’s face from below. Her eyes were utterly blank, as if turned inward in some imagined horror. She put an arm around Mary’s slender, shivering shoulders.</p><p> “It’s only me,” she whispered. “It’s only Anna. Come to bed, my lady—come on—”</p><p>All of Mary’s muscles went rigid. “I can’t lie down, I can’t. I’ll sleep, and I’ll dream…” She shuddered convulsively.</p><p>“It’ll be all right,” said Anna. “I’ll come with you. See? We’ll go together.”</p><p>Slowly, she coaxed Mary back towards her bed. Mary perched on the edge and would move no further. Anna made soothing sounds, no more than nonsense crooning. Her eyes ran desperately over the familiar furnishings again, just as she had done a few hours earlier, as if trying to seek comfort in their sameness and solidity. The Aubusson rug on the floor, cream traced with pastel flowers. The dressing table with its mirror. The standing mirror in the other corner. The chair up against one window… another chair at one side…</p><p>Mary gave a deep sigh and sagged against Anna. She seemed to come back to herself, at least a bit.</p><p>“Anna,” she whispered. “Oh, Anna, it’s you. How did you know?”</p><p>She sounded almost rational. Almost reasonable. But not quite.</p><p>“I’m not sure,” said Anna, moving next to Mary and taking one cold hand between both of her own. “But I knew that something was wrong. I had to come. Did you…” she hesitated. “Did you have a bad dream? Perhaps you’d feel better if you could only talk about it.”</p><p>Mary gave a short, broken laugh and began to speak in halting sentences. “I stood at one end of the dining room. It was on Saturday night. The room was alight with candles, alive with laughter. Fragrant with the scent of flowers. And he… he turned to me, and looked at me.”</p><p>Anna knew instantly who Mary was talking about. She nodded.</p><p>“He lifted a brandy snifter to me in a toast. He smiled. But in his eyes… I could see that he knew. What he would later do to me. What I would allow him to do. What would happen then. It was the look of death.” She shuddered. “And then he spoke. He said ‘I will be your doom, and you will be mine.’ And he laughed! An awful sound—”</p><p>The cold hand curled between Anna’s palms went rigid.  She turned suddenly, her dark eyes huge. “I must speak of it—I must—or I really shall go mad.”</p><p>“Was there more to the dream?” asked Anna.</p><p>Mary shook her head. “What happened that night,” she whispered.</p><p>Against her will, Anna felt a spark of awful curiosity. What really had happened on Saturday night? There was no question she could ask about it without being intolerably, inexcusably intrusive, but it seemed that she would not need to ask anything at all. She was ashamed of the feeling even as she had it, even as she sat by Mary’s side in the bed and waited silently. She didn’t need to wait long.</p><p>“I was ready for bed,” said Mary, staring straight ahead. “You’d left only a few minutes earlier. And suddenly, he opened the door, and I saw him. Smiling at me. I said that he must be mad, I asked him to leave, but he came in anyway. I threatened to scream, to ring the bell, but he reminded me of the truth. We would be discovered…. And I would be ruined. So he kept talking, and his words were so smooth, and then he kissed me… and somehow we ended up in bed together, before I even knew what was happening.”</p><p>She lapsed into silence, and Anna waited. Had Mary really wanted any of it to happen? The question burned in her own mind, but she would have jumped out the window before putting it into words.</p><p>“I-- I don’t <em>know </em>if I wanted it,” said Mary, exactly as if Anna had put her forbidden thoughts into words. She twisted her hands. “He had such a way of—putting things. I was swept up in it all. I was carried away.” She looked at Anna pleadingly. “Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you understand?”</p><p>Anna nodded. She had a much clearer idea of what really happened and why than Mary herself did; she could hardly help but know. It was not that Anna’s direct experience was a great deal larger; she’d never gone beyond a kiss and a cuddle. She’d known for a long time that if she wanted to be in service, she didn’t dare to allow boys to take more from her. True, many girls with no ambition beyond staying on their home farms might give in to what their sweethearts wanted, long before marriage was even seriously discussed. Several of her friends had married in their teens, and not before they were well along with a baby. But for any girl who wanted to make something of herself one day as a lady’s maid, housekeeper, or cook, succumbing to a man’s pretty pleas was unwise indeed. That didn’t mean that Anna was ignorant, however; no farmer’s daughter could possibly be that. She was no expert, but she knew far more of the facts of life than the sheltered daughter of an earl.</p><p>“And then I hardly knew what was going on. Did… did anything actually happen?” Mary asked, her eyes desperate now. “I’m not quite sure… help me, Anna.”</p><p>Anna took a deep breath. <em>She won’t remember a bit of this tomorrow morning</em>, she reminded herself. And for everyone’s good, she herself had to know what had really happened between Mary and Mr. Pamuk. If matters had gone as far as she feared, then there was the danger of a possible pregnancy. That was almost too dreadful to think about, but the reality would be worse still.</p><p>“Was Mr. Pamuk ever—well, you know…” she fumbled.</p><p>“No. I don’t know.” Mary looked blank.</p><p>Anna gritted her teeth and forced herself to go on to the next question. “Did you see his, ah… his <em>manhood</em>…. You know what I mean…?” Except that perhaps Mary didn’t. Or at least for everyone’s sake, it would be much better if she wasn’t quite aware of what the term meant.</p><p>“Oh!” A blush spread down Mary’s neck. “That. Er, yes. Yes, I did. It was quite surprising. I had heard something of it, but it was a bit larger than I expected. He did show it to me.”</p><p>Anna felt a twinge of real fear. “But did he actually <em>put</em> it, er… was it, um…” She made a gesture with her hands that she had seen her older brothers do, always where their mother couldn’t see them. Still no response from Mary.</p><p>She tried again. “Was he on top of you?”</p><p>Mary seemed to think for a long moment before replying. “Yes,” she finally said.</p><p><em>Oh, God, no.</em> Anna’s heart sank.</p><p>“That was the last thing he did,” said Mary, staring into the distance. “He pushed me back onto the bed, I remember... Then he climbed onto me…”</p><p>But this still didn’t mean that the last, irrevocable thing had actually <em>happened.</em> Anna clung briefly to that hope. <em>Maybe he had the heart attack before he had a chance to… well…</em></p><p>“He reached down to spread my legs,” Mary was going on. “He lowered himself down a bit, and then…”</p><p>Anna held her breath.</p><p>“I felt a stab of pain,” Mary went on. “Quite sharp. And then it was all so sudden. He just…  collapsed and rolled to one side. I thought that perhaps this was what was supposed to happen next. But then he stared at the ceiling, and he didn’t speak or move. Nothing I could do would rouse him again.”</p><p>Anna's heart skipped a beat. She sucked in a painful breath. <em>What are we going to do, what can we possibly do,</em> ran through her head again and again. <em>There might be a baby. There easily might. We can’t hide it. Or can we… perhaps Lady Mary could be sent to the continent… or she could pretend a long illness… or…. Oh, what to do… </em></p><p>“But why did he die? That’s what I don’t understand, I simply don’t, not at all,” said Mary. “What could have caused it? Do you have any idea?”</p><p>Quite truthfully, Anna shook her head no.</p><p> She turned her huge, appealing eyes on her maid. “Anna—you don’t think, do you—you can’t believe that I— that something<em> I</em> did might have--” She could not finish the sentence.</p><p> “Of course not,” she said. “I know you didn’t, couldn’t, do anything to, well, make this happen,” she finished rather lamely.</p><p>“But I must have done, somehow,” insisted Mary. “Even though I don’t know what it could have been. It can’t be anyone’s fault but mine. All mine, only mine.”</p><p>A thought came to Anna. Exactly what <em>had </em>really happened? Mr. Pamuk had suddenly died for no apparent reason, but as Mary had asked, <em>why</em>? Was there any sort of explanation? If so, was there any way to find out?</p><p>“If I could know. If I could only know!” Mary repeated.</p><p>Her thoughts ran on. How to know? Was it possible? Should she convince Mary to give up on trying? But could she manage to do that? Could she—</p><p>Mary gave a trembling cry and clutched onto Anna’s arm so hard that she gasped.</p><p>‘Look! Look!” she moaned.  </p><p>Anna saw that Mary was pointing into the one corner she hadn’t yet looked into. She swiveled her head in that direction, but her neck seemed stuck before she could quite get there. It seemed to take all her strength to force her eyes to shift to that part of the room. The corner had been empty before. It would be empty again, she told herself. Of course it would.</p><p>The silk upholstery of the red chair gleamed back at her in the faint candlelight.</p><p>“Who brought it back?” Anna asked stupidly. “You had it taken out, my lady, didn’t you? Earlier today? Didn’t William come up and move the chair?”</p><p>“No,” whispered Mary.</p><p>“But… but this just isn’t possible…” Anna forced herself to look closely at the chair. Only a chair, just a normal, ordinary chair, she chanted to herself. Straight, carved wooden back, arms, red velvet cushion.</p><p>A ripple of cold shivered down her back, like icy fingers laid gently along her spine, one by one.</p><p>The chair was the same as the one in the guest bedroom.</p><p>No. It wasn’t just the same. It <em>was </em>the chair.</p><p>The candle flickered, and the changes in light played along the lighter stripes of the red silk pattern. The stripes moved down into a moving pool of darkness in the seat. A darker red clot of shadow began to shift back and forth. That didn’t make sense, Anna thought numbly. It was impossible.</p><p>“He’s there,” whispered Mary. “He’s waiting. He has all the patience in the world. He’s asking why I didn’t save him, why I didn’t stop him from dying.”</p><p>Anna tore her gaze away from the seat of the chair with an effort, although she did not seem able to look away from the corner. She ran her eyes down the bottom of the chair. They ended in smooth legs with clawed feet. She realized that the chair was not on rockers. She had believed it was because normal armchairs did not move. She wasn’t sure why this one seemed to be moving.</p><p>No, not the chair… the pool of shadow in the seat was moving. Back and forth. Back and forth. The thing in the chair did not move in time with the patterns of light and darkness cast by the candle. It writhed and undulated on its own.</p><p><em>No. No. No, this isn’t possible. I’m having dream, just a dream. I haven’t even left my own bed. What if I screamed? It’s only a nightmare, so it shouldn’t even matter.</em> <em>Scream… just scream…</em> Anna opened her mouth but could not force air through her parched throat.</p><p>The shadow coiled in the chair shifted closer, as if to spring.</p><p>Mary gave a strangled cry and rushed out of the bed. Anna grasped at her fleeing form, but there was no way to catch her. She darted to the other end of the room as if she herself had turned into a shadow and moved at its inhuman speed. And then she was grappling with the window sash, starting to throw it open, and climbing up on the ledge.</p><p>An awful, glittering fear struck Anna. She stumbled across the room, grabbing at Mary’s legs, pulling her down. Crying, hissing, and swearing, Mary scrabbled at the window with desperate hands.</p><p>“Shh! Shh, shh, come back,” gasped Anna, struggling and failing to catch Mary around the waist. The window was half open. The drop down to the ground was easily thirty feet. “I’ve got to get help!” she said without thinking. “I can’t you get back on my own—"</p><p>Mary’s eyes widened until Anna could see the whites all around her chocolate-brown irises. “No, no, no!”</p><p>“All right; I won’t, I promise, I won’t,” babbled Anna. “But you’ve got to be quiet. Shh. Shh.” She finally managed to pull Mary away from the window and to sink down onto the floor with her. Mary went limp and started to breathe in great gasping sobs<em>. Can’t tell anyone, you can’t, don’t, don’t </em>were the only coherent words.</p><p>“Shh, sh. It’s all right. I won’t tell anyone, I promise I won’t,” Anna repeated, holding Mary’s head on her breast, stroking the long dark hair. What good would it do even if she did tell someone? Mary wouldn’t even remember any of this in the morning. She’d deny that anything was wrong.</p><p>At last, Mary raised her head and wiped her tears away with the back of one trembling hand.</p><p>“Do you see now, why I can’t be with Matthew? Why I must not encourage him? Why I need to keep him away?” She gave a broken laugh. “Matthew Crawley deserves better than I could give him. He deserves a girl who’s innocent and pure and untouched. And I’m not. I never shall be again.”</p><p>“It’s not your fault,” said Anna.</p><p>“But…” Mary’s ‘voice dropped lower still. “But I… I liked what happened. With Mr. Pamuk. Oh, God, I will never forget the shame of that. I <em>enjoyed</em> it.”</p><p>“It doesn’t make any difference,” Anna said in the stoutest voice she could muster. “it’s still not something you would have sought out. He was a smooth one, Mr. Pamuk, and he talked you into it. You’re not the first to be taken in by a silver tongue and a handsome face, my lady.”</p><p>“But… but then he died.”</p><p>“But that can’t have been your fault,” said Anna doggedly.</p><p>“Can’t it?” Mary gave a quiet, bitter snap of a laugh. Her voice was almost cool now, almost even, and so Anna understood that she meant what she said. “Perhaps I’m cursed. Perhaps I always will be.”</p><p>“Of course you’re not!”</p><p>“But I can’t know.” She gave a long, shuddering sigh. “If I could only<em> know</em>.”</p><p>Anna had no idea what to say to that. She kept rocking Mary back and forth in her arms, soothing her, crooning to her, until she felt her mistress relax slightly. Anna helped her to stand and walked her back to bed. After only a few more minutes, Mary began to breathe more deeply and evenly. Her eyes were closed, and her hair spread out across the pillow like dark seaweed. She was asleep. But she did not look peaceful, nor at rest.</p><p>Anna went out very quietly and stole back up the servants’ staircase, thinking furiously.</p><p><em>Lady Mary will never let me talk her out of thinking she was at fault,</em> Anna realized. <em>Not at three in the morning, and not during broad daylight. She’ll never be able to let go of wanting to know what happened. Unless… unless she does know… unless I found out the truth… </em></p><p>The idea came to Anna then.</p><p>Maybe <em>she</em> could solve the mystery and find out why Mr. Pamuk had died. Then she could tell Mary the truth during one of these horrible night terrors. Maybe even the next one, and Anna knew bone-deep that there would be a next time.  She knew that Mary would not remember anything the next day. But if she learned the truth just once… then maybe, just maybe, this nightmare could be stopped. Anna knew that if this couldn’t be done, then she herself had the obligation to tell Cora. And this was the last thing she wanted to do. <em>I gave Lady Mary my promise that I wouldn’t tell…</em>  And perhaps this was the one way to keep that promise.</p><p>“What a perfectly mad idea,” Anna whispered to herself. <em>I can’t seriously be thinking about doing this! </em></p><p>But…</p><p>But Mary had tried to throw herself out the window. She was at the edge of a breakdown. And she might turn out to be with child. There was no way to know then, of course; it was weeks too soon to be sure. But it could happen.</p><p><em>If I could only know</em>, Mary had said.</p><p>Anna stopped on the landing just outside the corridor that led to the women’s quarters, took a deep breath, and made her decision. If there was any truth to find about the death of Mr. Pamuk, then Anna would find it. If she could only tell Lady Mary that there was another solution, then the guilt would surely leave her. <em> I’ll say nothing until I know for sure, </em>she decided.</p><p>But what Anna now knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, was that she would do whatever she must to find out the truth.</p><p>+++</p><p>A/N: Eyeon asked an interesting question, which was if Mary’s paleness and fainting meant that she was pregnant. She isn’t, but I think that her behavior does mean something. In the show, we never got to see Mary’s state of mind and the way she was relating to everyone else during the weeks right after the Pamuk incident. I just don’t think that she would have gotten over it right away, but because of the values of the aristocracy of that time, there’s no way that she would have let everyone else see how upset she really was. I think that the horrible nightmares she didn’t even remember the next day really could have happened. In that case, Anna would have known about them, and I think it’s important for this fic that she does know.</p><p>In the next chapter… Anna starts to investigate! And she might just get some help. Things are really going to start to get interesting.  😉 But I feel like first it was necessary to show why Anna would have started to do some further digging, because without a very powerful motive, she would have left it alone. There’s too much of a risk that if she attempts to find out anything more about what really happened, her sleuthing could lead to the entire Pamuk story coming out—especially because both Thomas and O’Brien are obviously curious about it. As a loyal lady’s maid, this is the absolute last thing Anna would want. But if Mary seems to be at the absolute edge of sanity during these night terrors, if Anna is really afraid that she’s going to throw herself out the window one of those times, then that’s a strong enough reason to take the risk and start searching for the truth. And in Chapter 9… that’s just what she is going to do.</p><p>More coming next week!</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Anna's Decision</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A/N: Thanks to all readers, reviewers, followers, and kudo-ers, especially: cangrl</p><p>😊</p><p> Hey all, I’m so, SO sorry that it took so long for this chapter to come out!! But it’s been really crazy this fall. I’m re-committing to this fic, though, and this is a LONG chappie. There will be more to follow soon. And there’s some other good news… I’m working on the All Things Downton Abbey webpage, and I also spent November working on another fic. More about that at the end. Enjoy! 😊</p><p>+++</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Ay, now the Plot thickens very much upon us.”</p>
<ul>
<li>George Villiers, <em>The Rehearsal. </em>
</li>
</ul><p> </p><p>
  <strong>TUESDAY MORNING</strong>
</p><p>The clock had just struck eight, and the first morning rush was over. The main rooms on the ground floor were cleaned, the furniture dusted and polished, the fires laid, and the carpets swept. The bell for the servants’ breakfast had rung. Everyone was making their way to the servants’ hall, where Daisy was finishing the preparation of their own breakfast while Mrs. Patmore busied herself with breakfast for the family. Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson were already in the middle of a conversation as Gwen took out the bowls of porridge, trays of toast, poached eggs, sausage, teapots, and teacups and began passing the food round.</p><p>“I’d like to tackle the tower project while the family’s away,” said the housekeeper, spooning sugar into her tea. “The walls haven’t been repainted in dog’s years, and if there’s anything I hate, it’s a rundown look. Paint peeling onto the floor, and so forth.”</p><p>Mr. Carson winced slightly and nodded. “Mrs. Hughes, I believe you’re quite right. We mustn’t allow such a state of disrepair to continue.”</p><p>“It’s not as if anyone goes into that tower from one year to the next,” Thomas pointed out, forking into an egg.</p><p>“That is not the point,” the butler said sternly. “It reflects badly on Downton as a whole.”</p><p>“But first there’s the next Friday to Monday to consider,” Mrs. Hughes went on. “We’ll have at least ten guests. Lady Westborough’s maid let his displeasure be known last time at the state of the guest room, too!” She sniffed.</p><p>“Oh, I remember that, all right,” said O’Brien. She turned to Anna on her left. “We never heard the end of it, did we?”</p><p>Anna gave a little jump. She had been smiling and nodding at the normal breakfast banter, barely hearing any of it.</p><p>The other lady’s maid cocked her head, her eyes bright and sharp, clearly expecting an answer.</p><p>“Yes, of course I remember. The complaining was dreadful,” she said, forcing a smile. She picked up a piece of toast and began nibbling on it to avoid further conversation. The bread was fresh-baked and slathered with butter, but it tasted like cardboard.</p><p>Normally, Anna appreciated every meal in the servants’ hall. She knew how lucky she was to get such good food at Downton. Her cousin in Leeds was always writing that her friends, who were maids in smaller houses, were lucky if lukewarm oatmeal turned up at the breakfast table.  But this morning, her thoughts were consumed by everything that had happened the night before, and everything that she had decided to do in response. Remembered images whirled round and round behind her eyes, half-formed ideas struggling to take shape in her mind.</p><p>She still held to the same vow she’d made at three in the morning. She had a duty to help Mary. But the cold, hard light of reality was beginning to show the cracks in that conviction. How on earth was she going to start chasing down clues? What sort of information was she even trying to find? And above all, how could she possibly keep this search a secret, so that there was no chance of the truth about Mr. Pamuk leaking beyond the trio who knew it, herself, Mary, and Cora? One of her grandmother’s old sayings came back to her.</p><p>
  <em>Aye, three might keep a secret, p’raps… if two be in their graves.</em>
</p><p>“Pass me the salt, would you, Anna?” asked William in her left ear. She jumped slightly, nodded, and passed over the salt shaker.</p><p>He salted his oatmeal vigorously, studying her face. “You all right, Anna? Only you look a bit queer.”</p><p>“Oh, yes, I’m right as rain,” said Anna, trying not to squirm under his gaze. The morning conversation swirled around her, but she barely heard it.</p><p>“It’s your half day off, innit?” he went on. “And you’re off to Leeds to see your married cousin?”</p><p>Anna nodded. She took a long drink of tea as an excuse for not making a further verbal reply. “How did you know?” she finally asked, when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to stop looking at her until he got some sort of answer.</p><p>“Oh, I heard it somewhere. I’ve got a good memory, me,” said William.</p><p>Anna nodded. That was true. She wasn’t sure if anyone could exactly call William clever or not, but his powers of recall could be amazing.</p><p>‘“Quite an eye for detail, you have,” put in O’Brien from across the table.</p><p>“True,” added Thomas at her side, which was his correct place as first footman. “I didn’t even remember it’s Anna’s day out, but our William picked up on it.”</p><p>Anna struggled to keep her face blank. O’Brien and Thomas were two people who noticed far too much and used all of their knowledge for dubious ends. She was not going to give them the slightest lead-in.  </p><p>“This family’s very generous with half days off, I’ll say that for them,” added Thomas. “I’ve been in houses where you’re lucky to get one a month. Not to mention how you’re expected to fit in a full day’s work and more before you’re allowed to leave.”</p><p>“I’ve worked in houses where getting back late by half an hour meant dismissal,” added O’Brien. “I will agree, it’s better here and no mistake.”</p><p>Anna nodded guardedly. It was true. The Crawleys didn’t mind a bit if a half day stretched into the evening; in fact, they rather expected it. They were quite generous with the number of days off as well, with one every week like clockwork and one paid week off per year. Parliament had passed a law twenty years earlier that required domestic employers to follow these rules, but Anna knew all too well from friends and relatives that many households honored them more in the breach than in the observance. That was one of the reasons why, when she’d had the opportunity to work in a factory in Liverpool a couple of years before, she had turned it down almost without a thought.</p><p>But she couldn’t be at all sure that the conversation had really taken such a harmless turn.</p><p>“By the way, Anna, I was in the village yesterday,” said O’Brien.</p><p>“Were you, now,” replied Anna, chewing on her toast and watching the older woman guardedly. <em>I was right! I don’t know where this could be headed, but knowing her, it’s noplace good.</em></p><p>“Mr. Paul Smithson spoke to me. You know—the doctor’s locum.”</p><p>“That’s nice.” The toast suddenly seemed too dry in her mouth. She glanced around the table, trying to think of something to say. Her eyes fell on Bates. This was most likely not the best idea while O’Brien was watching her like a cat at a mousehole, but she couldn’t help it.</p><p>Bates sat at the other end of the table. She’d caught glimpses of him smiling, nodding, and eating. But now, she saw him staring into the distance. The thousand-mile stare, her father had called it. The look on the faces of the men who had fought in the Boer War, as her father had done. What was he thinking about as he sat eating breakfast, she wondered. The war was long over. She couldn’t believe that Britain would ever fight in such a pointless, wasteful conflict again. So what could possibly be on his mind? Could he be thinking anything like the thoughts that haunted her so relentlessly? For his sake, she hoped not.</p><p>“Well, Smithson was asking after you,” O’Brien went on. “He said to tell you that he was free every day at around three o’clock.”</p><p>“How nice for <em>him</em>,” said Anna, taking a bite of bacon and starting to chew her way through it.</p><p>“He’d love to see you. Perhaps you could change your plans.”</p><p>“No, I couldn’t.” Anna remembered all too well a number of occasions with Paul Smithson had tried to flirt with her. He had a way of popping up  behind her when she was coming out of the post office or happening to stroll past her while she walked down the village street.  “Ah well, you know, I’m out every day around three,“ he would say with a charming smile and a twinkle in his eye, the effect rather spoiled by the fact that he was much too conscious of how charming he was. “It’s a break in the daily routine of doing rounds, you know, if you ever want to drop by! When’s your day out? There’s that nice little tearoom on the high street…”</p><p>“Another handsome young gentleman,” said Thomas, giving her a sidelong look.</p><p>“I don’t think Paul Smithson’s so handsome,” put in William. “Bit stuck-up, if you ask me.”</p><p>“We didn’t,” said O’Brien.</p><p>“What d’you mean, <em>another</em> one?” blurted Daisy suddenly as she set a platter down on the table.</p><p>“Well, we’ve just had one here, haven’t we?” Thomas asked smoothly. “Poor Mr. Pamuk.”</p><p>“Oh.” Daisy nodded and tried to smile, but her gaze was fixed in front of her, and she was looking at nothing, as far as Anna could tell.</p><p>“Paul Smithson’s a deal too conceited for me,” Anna put in, earning her a grateful glance from Daisy. “He’s a bit too fond of fine clothes and affected airs.”</p><p>“But he<em> is </em>handsome,” said O’Brien, glancing at her from Thomas’s side.</p><p>“It makes no difference to me whether he is or not. I’m spending my half day with my married cousin,” Anna said firmly.</p><p>“Quite right,” said Mr. Carson, coming into the room. “No; no, don’t bother to stand up. I have the morning mail.” It was too late; everyone had already pushed back their chairs and got to their feet. Anna was so lost in thought that she didn’t realize Bates had left the room until Mrs. Hughes’ words made her head jerk up.</p><p>“I wonder where Mr. Bates has got to,” said the housekeeper, flipping through the envelopes. “There’s a letter here for him.”</p><p>“Gone already? There were wings on his feet, weren’t there?” said O’Brien, shooting Anna a look.</p><p>“I wonder where he could have gone in such a hurry?” asked Thomas.</p><p>“Who’s to say? At any rate, I’ll keep the letter to give him later,” Mrs. Hughes said briskly. “Anna, here’s one for you.”</p><p>Anna took the envelope, nodding her thanks. She could feel O’Brien’s gimlet gaze boring into the paper. She wasn’t about to open it at the table.</p><p>Breakfast broke up as the bells began to ring, everyone preparing to head upstairs. Anna lagged slightly behind, waiting until O’Brien had started up to her mistress’s room with one last lingering look, as if hoping that she would suddenly gain the ability to read through solid objects. When everyone else had left the servants’ hall, Anna walked to a secluded corner where she could see anyone coming towards her and opened the letter, unfolding the thick, smooth white paper.</p><p>
  <em>My dear Anna, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>This is hoping that this letter finds you as well as it finds me. Unfortunately the children are not so well. Lucy, John, and Ermengarde have all caught the measles. I can only pray that this letter reaches you in time to spare you a wasted train journey. Please take the greatest care for your health. Perhaps we may see one another again soon.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Your dearest cousin</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Alice Hartley</em>
</p><p>Anna refolded the letter, an odd feeling stealing over her. It was as if an obstacle had been removed from her path. She wouldn’t be going to Leeds. The day was open ahead of her. And what Thomas had said at breakfast came back to her now. Dr. Clarkson was looking into the cause of Mr. Pamuk’s death. What had he found? Whatever it was,  someone at the hospital had to know more.</p><p>Someone like Paul Smithson.</p><p>And as O’Brien had reminded her, he would be free most any day around three o’clock.</p><p>Maybe… maybe that letter had been a sign. It was almost as if the day had been decided for her. But still…</p><p>The very faint sound of whispering drifted to her ears. She glanced up the stairs to see Thomas and O’Brien on one side of the landing in a secluded corner, their heads together.</p><p>Anna pressed herself further into the corner, her heart pounding. They could be talking about anything at all. Their conversation surely had nothing to do with the problems that haunted her. T<em>hey don’t know anything about Lady Mary, about Mr. Pamuk, about what happened</em>, she told herself again and again. <em>They can’t.</em></p><p>The whispering went on for a few more moments, and then the pair hurried up to the green baize door and disappeared through it. Anna let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. She walked slowly down the little corridor and stared through a window into the delivery yard, looking at her own vague, blurred outline.</p><p>Perhaps Thomas and O’Brien really didn’t know anything yet. But the two of them, together, with their suspicions… what might they find out? Did she herself have any right to provide any sort of opportunity for them to figure out anything more?</p><p>If she talked to the young locum, if she spoke with <em>anyone</em> in this attempt to get information, then that unholy pair might learn about it. That would be bad enough and then some, but the biggest danger of all might arise then-- that someone outside the house and the family could get wind of what she was doing. And God only knew what that would lead to. What if someone else became too curious, either Paul Smithson himself, or the doctor, or simply a village gossip? Did she herself have any right to put the family at any risk of the truth getting out, no matter how small that risk might be?</p><p>But then, how on earth had she thought she was going to find out anything at all without talking to others outside the house? She was hardly Sherlock Holmes, as much as she’d read all of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. She didn’t have the faintest idea how to begin solving the mystery through some clever examination of clues on her own. She could only think of following up on this slender hope, and that meant talking to Paul Smithson. <em>But it’s such a mad idea, really…</em>  </p><p>Anna still thought that if there were just some way to know what had happened to Mr. Pamuk and why, some way to prove that it couldn’t’ possibly have been Mary’s fault, then perhaps her mistress would find peace. But how could that possibly be proven one way or another? What sort of evidence could she find? How was there any real chance of finding out anything? In broad daylight, it no longer seemed to make the sort of sense than it had during those desperate small hours.</p><p>Maybe… maybe it would be better for the family if she <em>did</em> stop now.</p><p>After all, she had no obligation to begin this perfectly mad quest. She could still give up on it, still have a pleasant day of taking the train and shopping and eating in one of the new ABC Shops in Leeds. Or she could rest and read the romance she was currently enjoying, nap in her room, walk leisurely round the village, and make no attempt to talk to Paul Smithson or anyone else. </p><p>As for what might or might not already be going on in the house, well, she’d simply need to keep an eye on Thomas and O’Brien. The only thing worth worrying about was whether they knew or guessed more than they ought. And Anna couldn’t do anything about that at the moment.</p><p>But then again… what if they <em>did</em> figure something out? Wouldn’t it be so much worse for Anna herself to have no information about what had really happened, no ammunition against whatever lies those two might choose to slyly spread?</p><p>She sighed, slumping against the wall, then starting when she heard a bell ring. Mary’s bell, she saw when she went back into the main room. <em>That’s a bit odd,</em> thought Anna. <em>She never rises this early in the morning if she didn’t sleep well the night before. </em>She hurried upstairs, rather grateful for the interruption.</p><p>When she reached <strong>the</strong> corridor, heading towards Mary’s room, Cora’s door opened. She beckoned for Anna to come in, and she shut the door firmly behind her.</p><p>“I won’t keep you long,” said Cora, sitting in the chair by the dressing table.  She wore a wrapper, and her hair was still down. “Anna, I am sorry that we need to keep speaking of this. But I’m afraid that we do.” She hesitated just long enough for Anna to feel darts of fear steal through her. “I must ask you a question,” she went on. “Only once, and then we don’t need to refer to it again. But I’m not quite sure of something in my mind, not beyond any doubt, and I need to be if it is possible.”</p><p><em>Oh, dear God,</em> thought Anna.</p><p>Cora took a deep breath. “Anna, has Lady Mary said anything to you to lead you to believe that… that certain events took place <em>fully</em>…“</p><p>For a second, a very brief second before reality flooded in on her mind, Anna didn’t know what she was talking about. She stared blankly back at Cora, who went on.</p><p>“If, on Saturday night, with Mr. Pamuk…if they… if the two of them actually went so far as to…” Cora made a helpless gesture with one hand.</p><p> Anna knew instantly what Mary’s mother was trying to ask, and she knew the answer. <em>I have to tell Lady Cora. Oh, I don’t want to… would it be better to lie? No. She needs to know, because there could be consequences. Dangerous ones.</em> But she could not bring herself to finish the sentence, either.</p><p>“If their activities were… completely consummated?” Cora finished in a rush. “Do you know what I mean?”</p><p>“Yes,” whispered Anna.</p><p>“And… were they?”</p><p>“Yes, my lady, I’m afraid so.” Anna looked at the floor.</p><p>Cora let all her breath out in a rush. “You’re quite sure?”</p><p>“I’m afraid I am. You see… Lady Mary was quite clear enough in what she told me… she described what, er, happened between them, and because of exactly what she said, I knew…” Anna prayed that she would need to say no more.</p><p>
  <em>But wait… I ought to tell Lady Cora that her daughter is going half-mad, trying to jump out the window at three in the morning, eaten up by guilt. I know I ought. But then again, Lady Mary asked me, begged me not to tell.</em>
</p><p>Didn’t she have a primary loyalty to the Crawley family as a whole, though? Anna knew that her place herd was ideal. The family had always been so very good to her, when so many employers were dreadful to downstairs staff. <em>Shouldn’t that mean something to me? It’s got to. It does. But Lady Mary means more</em>, she thought despairingly.</p><p>Cora expected an answer, and she knew it. But she could not give one.  Torn between conflicting loyalties, Anna could not say a word. </p><p>“I see. I see.” Cora drummed her fingers on the dressing room table. “Well. We don’t need to speak any more about it right now. If something further should… happen… we will deal with it. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Until then, there’s no point in saying anything more. I don’t know when Lady Mary will be up; O’Brien will dress her. It’s your day out today, isn’t it? I’ll let you go; I should hate to keep you any longer. And please don’t feel that you need to hurry back, Anna.”</p><p>Dismissed, Anna walked rapidly to her room. Her last doubts were gone. Perhaps she should have been more loyal to the Crawley family as a whole. But she could not. Mary had the highest claim on her loyalty, and she had promised Mary not to tell her mother. So there was only one way out. She knew that she needed to find out the truth about what had really happened to Mr. Pamuk, if she possibly could. If she did not, then she was afraid that Lady Mary really might go mad.</p><p>And so she now knew what she would do, beyond the shadow of a doubt. The answer had been handed to her, literally so, perhaps, when Mrs. Hughes had given her the letter from Alice.</p><p>Anna knew that she could get information out of the young locum. She didn’t like using an eager young man in that way, and she was still afraid that allowing even the slightest hint to slip outside of the house could even lead to the truth coming out. But she didn’t see any other choice. The chance that he’d know anything was a slim one, but it was the only chance she had.</p><p>Anna sighed. Her mind was made up, as little as she liked the conclusion.</p><p>She drank tea in her room and read a new book she’d picked up in the village, a romance about Ottoman harems, which made it difficult not to think at least a bit about Mr. Pamuk. Still, she enjoyed the unaccustomed feeling of laziness. In most houses, the staff needed to be out as soon as possible on their days off, or they would be pressed into service anyway. But not at Downton. <em>I have such a good place here</em>, she thought again. But her mind was made up now. Lady Mary’s interests came first. </p><p>She took a short nap, although it was broken by fragments of strange dreams about sultans and dancing-girls and marble palaces with sinister plots behind every door. At one-thirty in the afternoon, she left.</p><p>On her way out the back door, she felt a touch on her arm and turned to see Bates. Her heart leapt a little, as it always did during those rare moments when they found themselves both alone and together. She smiled at him, but his face remained serious.</p><p>“What is it, Mr. Bates?” she finally asked.</p><p>He parted his lips and seemed about to speak.</p><p>The door to the housekeeper’s room opened behind him. “Mr. Bates?” Mrs. Hughes called. “Did you get your letter?”</p><p>“Yes, thank you,” he called back, turning back to Anna and shaking his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Enjoy your day out, Anna.”</p><p>He had been about to say something. She knew it. As she walked to the village, the warm breeze caressing her face, Anna had a strange thought. <em>Was he going to warn me of something?</em> She shook her head. <em>I’m jumping at shadows now, imagining the worst. God knows, there’s more than enough to worry about that’s really happening. I don’t need to let my imagination run away with me as well.</em></p><p>She strolled about the village for a while, doing a bit of shopping, stopping in the post office to mail the letter she’d written in reply to her cousin. On her way out, she saw someone out of the corner of her eye who looked a great deal like O’Brien. <em>I’m not going to give her the satisfaction of turning round to see if that’s who it really is,</em> she decided. <em>I’ve got as much right to be mailing a letter as she does</em>. <em>Unless she was spying on me... Oh, that’s silly. Or is it? With her, one never knows. </em></p><p>Then, when the church clock stood at a quarter to three, she headed for the cottage hospital. She arrived quickly, which gave her more than enough time to wonder if she was making a mistake. Irresolute, she lingered near the back entrance of the hospital. How could she go in and ask for Paul Smithson? Wouldn’t she just make a fool of herself, or at the very least draw too much attention? A bit of the old feeling was creeping back, where Anna felt that the entire scheme was just ridiculous. But she had put her hand to the plow, and she wasn’t about to turn back now.</p><p>As she stood and debated with herself, a side door opened, and Smithson came out, wiping his hands on a towel. His face lit up when he saw her.</p><p>“If it isn’t the fair Anna!” he said. “Did they let you out of the clink at Downton for the day?”</p><p>“I suppose they did.” She gave him a smile, afraid that it looked artificial. He was young and handsome, yes, but he was too smooth, too flashy, exactly the sort of man who made her uncomfortable. <em>Too late to back out it now! </em>“Is your offer of tea still open?” she asked.</p><p>“I should say it is. I’ll change my jacket and be back in a jiffy. You won’t go anywhere in the meantime, will you?”</p><p>“Er… no. I’ll stay right here and wait.”</p><p>He winked at her. “Be careful not to fall in love while I’m gone! There are a deal of other locums here, you know, and they <em>will</em> stroll about the back gardens in search of pretty girls.”</p><p>“I’m sure I won’t.” Anna stifled a sigh as the young man went back inside, whistling. At least she could be sure of a good tea.</p><p>In a room in the top floor of the Rose and Crown public house, only a few hundred yards away from the back of the hospital, a man stood looking out the window at Anna, studying her closely. He had been wise to discreetly return to the area, he decided, to check whether there were any suspicions, and to speak with his local spy. Because indeed, it seemed as if there were rumblings that might lead to trouble—if they were allowed to develop. Which, of course, he could not permit.</p><p>But he wished that Mary Crawley’s lady’s maid weren’t involved. Anna Smith seemed such a nice little thing.</p><p>It would be dreadful to be obliged to put her out of the way.</p><p>
  <strong>TBC… </strong>
</p><p>++++</p><p>So there’s a mystery man watching Anna! Who do YOU think it might be?</p><p>My NaNo project was/is a new fic, <em>We Have Always Lived At Downton Abbey. </em>If you’ve ever wondered who the mysterious wounded officer in Season 2 really was, if you’ve been driven awake at three in the morning with the question of whether or not he was actually Patrick Crawley gnawing at your mind (okay, maybe you didn’t really need to go that far… 😉), then you’ll have to read this! The story will explore the mystery of Major Gordon’s true identity and come up with answers based in canon, all hidden in the published script and the scenes that were never filmed. Coming soon…</p><p>And don't forget to join our FB group at: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/203314623707500">All Things Downton Abbey</a></p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. The Meetings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter 10: The Meetings</strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>
    <a href="https://www.azquotes.com/quote/224598?ref=poison">Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.</a>
  </strong>
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong><em><a href="https://www.azquotes.com/author/11295-Paracelsus">Paracelsus</a></em></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>
  <strong>Yes! Miracles do happen! Chapter 10 is UP. </strong>
  <strong>😊</strong>
  <strong> And the plot is moving along, as you’ll see… Anna starts to get a few clues about the mysterious death of Mr. Pamuk. </strong>
</p>
<p><strong>Thanks to all readers, reviewers, kudo-ers, and followers, especially: </strong>jeanisbae,  thesmallprint, and cangrl </p>
<p>
  <strong>+++</strong>
</p>
<p>Anna had been afraid that it might be difficult to keep up a conversation with Paul Smithson as they walked down the high street of the village towards the new teashop, but it was very easy. She simply needed to smile and nod at everything he said, with an occasional admiring exclamation at the right time.</p>
<p>“There’s no moving picture theater here, of course,” he was saying now as they walked past the dry goods shop. “I suppose there won’t be some for quite some time. Wish there was, but that’s a bit much to expect in a dead and alive street like this one.”</p>
<p>“Yes, of course, you’re right,” said Anna. She was not entirely sure what she had even agreed to, since she was trying to imagine how she could possibly get Smithson around to the subject of Mr. Pamuk. No decent ideas had presented themselves as yet. <em>If he does know anything, I doubt he’s supposed to chat about it. But then, it hasn’t exactly been difficult to keep him talking so far. </em></p>
<p>“No, you’ve got to go to London for that,” he went on. “Say, we ought to make a day of that sometime, if they let you out of the clink at Downton again. You should see Mary Pickford in <em>A Good Little Devil</em>.”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes!” Anna agreed. Her mind kept working. <em>What if Dr. Clarkson never found anything strange about Mr. Pamuk’s death in the first place? What if there’s nothing to tell?</em> <em>This could easily all be for nothing. He’s talking again; I really ought to pay a bit of attention. </em></p>
<p>“Don’t you think so, Miss Smith?” he asked, beaming at her.</p>
<p><em>What exactly did he say?</em> wondered Anna. “Yes,” she said, smiling brightly in return.</p>
<p>“I knew it! I just knew you’d love to go to Paris someday. The Champs Elysee… the Eiffel Tower… the nightlife…  My friend said they never went to bed before four in the morning the entire time they were there.” He winked at her.</p>
<p><em>Oh, dear Lord</em>, thought Anna, groaning inwardly. They were almost to the tea shop. Could she get away with giggling and not answering at all? <em>No, that’s even worse. Then he’d get completely the wrong impression of me. Oh, I ought to know this was the sort of thing that would happen if I pretended to be the sort of girl who would laugh at something like that!</em></p>
<p>“Why, Anna, fancy seeing you here!” said a smooth voice. Anna glanced up. For perhaps the first time in her life, she was devoutly glad to see Sarah O’Brien standing in front of her. The other woman gave her the cold, pleasant smile that Anna had seen so many times, looking her up and down, her gaze shifting to Mr. Smithson. Anna decided that her own gratitude to O’Brien was very limited in nature.</p>
<p>“Hello, Miss O’Brien,” said Anna, her voice carefully neutral. The other woman smiled wider in return. Anna decided that if her suspicions hadn’t been roused before, that smile alone would have done it.</p>
<p>O’Brien tipped her head. “ So nice to see that you’re enjoying your day out with a handsome young gentleman. Aren’t you going to introduce me?”</p>
<p>“Mr. Smithson, this is Miss O’Brien,” said Anna, thinking that between the horns of the dilemma she’d been stuck on, this was the sharper one by far.<em> I should have giggled after all!</em></p>
<p>“Charmed to meet any friend of Miss Smith’s.” Mr. Smithson lifted his hat briefly.</p>
<p>“Well—I’ll be on my way,” said O’Brien sweetly, continuing to walk past them.</p>
<p>“Who was that?” asked Smithson once she had passed.</p>
<p>“Only the other lady’s maid,” replied Anna.  </p>
<p>He raised an eyebrow. “Not much love lost between you two, is there?”</p>
<p>Perhaps he wasn’t as oblivious as she’d believed. “I like to keep myself to myself where she’s concerned,” Anna said guardedly.</p>
<p>“Suspicious cat,” laughed Smithson. “And jealous! I’m sure she’d love to be headed towards a tearoom with a man.”</p>
<p>Anna thought that he was right about that. “Never mind her. Tell me more about Paris?” She tried for a giggle. It sounded like more a choking rabbit, but Mr. Smithson didn’t seem to notice. He went off into raptures about the Hôtel de Ville, and she tried to figure out the meaning of what had just happened.</p>
<p>Perhaps there wasn’t any meaning. Miss O’Brien just happened to be strolling down the village street at the same moment she and Mr. Smithson had been on their way towards the tea shop. Then again, the lady’s maid could be spying for some reason of her own, unknown but probably nasty.</p>
<p>Either way, perhaps it might be all to the good. Seeing her with Mr. Smithson could throw O’Brien off the scent in the direction of Mr. Bates. Not that there was anything for anyone <em>to</em> know when it came to herself and Mr. Bates, Anna reminded herself.</p>
<p>“Looks quite the cosy corner! Ladies first,” said Mr. Smithson, holding open the door to the tea shop for Anna.</p>
<p>They were seated at a table near the back, away from the windows, which suited Anna very well. He ordered tea and cakes, and Anna sipped at a cup of Earl Grey, listening to him enthuse about dancehalls, wondering how she could possibly begin to bring up the subject that had driven her to this meeting in the first place. As he paused to take a breath, she decided that it was now or never.</p>
<p>“I don’t know how you can possibly get time to go to all of these places, Mr. Smithson,” she said. “After all, you work so hard at the hospital.”</p>
<p>“That I do!” he sighed. “Still, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy indeed. Did I tell you about the time—”</p>
<p>“And it’s such <em>important </em>work,” she hurriedly added. “You see so many patients.”</p>
<p>“You’re right about that,” said Mr. Smithson. “But I’m sure that wouldn’t interest a pretty girl like yourself.”</p>
<p>Anna gritted her teeth. “I’m<em> terribly</em> interested. You must have such, er, <em>interesting</em> cases<em>…” I sound like a perfect fool.</em></p>
<p>He shrugged. “Not much lately, if you must know. Mostly farmers with erysipelas. You wouldn’t know what that is, of course, so don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”</p>
<p>She had a sudden vision of herself emptying the teapot over the dapper young man’s trousers. “But didn’t you see that poor Turkish gentleman, Mr. Pamuk, just last week?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes; Dr. Clarkson brought him in. Although it was a bit, er, late to help him. Sounds like you’ve heard about that sad case. It’s enough to give anyone the blue devils.”</p>
<p>This sounded at least a bit more encouraging.  “Wasn’t it unusual that Dr. Clarkson brought him in even though he was already deceased? Why did the doctor examine him at all?”</p>
<p>Mr. Smithson looked both startled and uncomfortable. ‘I really oughtn’t to say anything more about it.”</p>
<p><em>Ergh.</em> The moment she’d stopped sounding like an utter fool, he’d clammed up. “Oh, I understand. All of the maids at Downton were curious; that’s all. Mr. Pamuk was rather good-looking, you see, and we wondered what actually happened to him.”</p>
<p>Mr. Smithson’s face relaxed. “I suppose there isn’t much excitement up at the manor, and anything will do.”</p>
<p>She forced herself to titter. “That’s about the size of it. I just wondered if, er…” An inspiration suddenly struck her. “Doctor Clarkson is such an amazing man.”</p>
<p>“Oh, he’s quite competent, for a country doctor,” Mr. Smithson said stiffly.</p>
<p><em>I knew it! Mr. Smithson thinks he’s a sight too smart to be stuck in a small town hospital. Now, if I can play this just right…</em>  “But it’s got to be so difficult to figure out what happened from only seeing poor Mr. Pamuk.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know about that.” He stirred his tea, pursing his lips.</p>
<p>“Something to do with his liver, didn’t he say? How can a doctor understand that much from just looking at a body?”</p>
<p>Mr. Smithson set down his spoon with a clatter. “I assisted with that diagnosis a fair bit. Dr. Clarkson didn’t come up with it on his own. In fact,<em> I</em> had a sight more to do with it.”</p>
<p>She batted her eyelashes at him. “Really? How terribly clever you must be!” <em>Ugh. How can any man believe this claptrap?</em></p>
<p>But when she saw Mr. Smithson’s self-satisfied smile, she knew she was on the right track.</p>
<p>“You see, it was Mr. Pamuk’s <em>heart, </em>not his liver. I understood that at once,” he said with a confiding air. She nodded and made an encouraging noise. As she had hoped, he went on.</p>
<p>“It was very queer, because, of course, Mr. Pamuk was such a healthy young man. In fact…although I really oughtn’t to be talking about this…” He allowed his words to trail off, clearly waiting for a reaction from her.</p>
<p>“I promise not to tell,” she said.</p>
<p>He leaned close to her and spoke in a low, dramatic voice. “I saw a case like that in medical school once. And it turned out to be…”</p>
<p>“Oh, do tell!” begged Anna.</p>
<p>“Poison.”</p>
<p>Anna was quite sure that the shock on her face was all the reaction that Mr. Smithson could have hoped for. If anything, she was afraid that it was a bit too much, and she struggled for a calmer expression, glancing out the window in what she hoped was a casual way.</p>
<p>She met a man’s eyes. He was standing in the street outside the teashop, but he might as well have been at her side. He was a figure she would recognize anywhere. <em>Mr. Bates. </em></p>
<p>It was the same look he’d had at the breakfast table that morning, when their eyes had so briefly met. As if everything happening around them was a shadow show, and the two of them were the only real people in the world. It was a look that recognized something in her she didn’t even understand herself. It shook her, unsettled her, disturbed her.</p>
<p>“—couldn’t have been arsenic,” Mr. Smithson was saying now.</p>
<p>“What?” She started, blinked, and turned back towards the locum.</p>
<p>A shadow of irritation passed over his smooth, handsome face. Anna sighed inwardly. She knew that look all too well—it was the one young men gave you when you hadn’t been listening to them attentively enough.</p>
<p>“I’m sure you did the right thing, Mr. Smithson,” she assured him, and he smiled again.</p>
<p>When Anna glanced out the window, Bates was gone.</p>
<p>The rest of the visit passed by in a blur. She was vaguely aware that Mr. Smithson was talking to her and she was making the right noises in return, that they were leaving the teashop, that they were walking back towards the cottage hospital, but all she could see was Mr. Bates’ face, with those intense, burning dark eyes fixed upon her.</p>
<p>Why did he have to disturb her in that way? She’d been doing so well in getting information from Mr. Smithson, and as soon as she saw Mr. Bates staring at her from the street, her thoughts were scattered like leaves in the wind. What could that look have meant? Was he watching her? Or did he only happen to be standing on the street at the moment she looked up? <em>No</em>, she decided. <em>I don’t believe that.</em></p>
<p>“We’ll have to do this again,” Mr. Smithson was saying now. Anna glanced about with a faint surprise at seeing that they’d reached the hospital yard again.</p>
<p>“Er, yes, of course, Mr. Smithson,” she said, forcing a smile. She waved at the locum as he went back into the rear of the hospital, whistling.</p>
<p>As soon as the door closed, Anna turned. With no sense of surprise, she saw that Bates was standing at the edge of the back yard leading to the hospital door. He extended his hand slightly and crooked his finger back. Her eyebrows swooped together into an angry line. <em>I should pretend I didn’t even see him. I should give him a cold nod and go my way without a word.</em> <em>I should… oh, who do I think I’m fooling?</em> She already knew she would do no such thing.</p>
<p>She walked towards him, trying to hide the shakiness of her knees.</p>
<p>“Yes?” she said stiffly.</p>
<p>He looked back at her without speaking.</p>
<p><em>If he thinks I’m just going to drop everything and come to him when he hasn’t said so much as a word, well, he’s got another think coming, </em>she thought.<em> Men! They’re all more trouble than they’re worth. </em></p>
<p>“What is it, Mr. Bates?” she snapped.</p>
<p>“Will you come with me, Anna?” he asked quietly, in the low, musical voice that she had never been able to resist.</p>
<p>“What for?” she asked warily.</p>
<p>“We need to talk.”</p>
<p>After a moment, she nodded, knowing that it was what she wanted as well. <em>But I’m not going to be the only one who says anything, </em>she vowed.<em> I’ll get a few answers out of him, too—see if I don’t!</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>TBC... </p>
<p>A/N: I just finished the entire second part of We Have Always Lived At Downton Abbey, which is about the mysterious Major Peter Gordon (or was he Patrick Crawley?) Like Curious Case, it pieces together canon information to come up with a serious theory about what really happened. Unlike this fic, though, it takes a lot from lines and scenes that were in the published script (Season 2, Ep 6) but never made it to the screen. There is actually an answer to who he was, but you will never know it from watching that episode. I'm trying to decide if I should wait to start posting it until CCOMP is done or not. What do YOU think??</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. An Afternoon Walk</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>CHAPTER 11: An Afternoon Walk</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Very few of us are what we seem. </strong>
</p><ul>
<li><strong><em>Agatha Christie</em></strong></li>
</ul><h4>Thanks to all readers, reviewers, and favorite-ers, especially <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesmallprint/pseuds/thesmallprint">thesmallprint, </a><strong>who officially earned the sapphire review crown. </strong> <strong>😊</strong> <strong> I really love the next few chapters, and I hope you will too!</strong>
</h4><p>
  <strong>Yes, believe it or not, you really are seeing Chapter 11. The pace will pick up from now on!</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She followed Mr. Bates to the far end of the yard, where he stopped. “I’d like to walk down by the stream; I don’t think anyone is likely to be there at this time of day. Is that all right, Anna?”</p><p>He was asking her if she was willing to walk and talk with him alone, where they were very unlikely to be seen or overheard, she realized. It was also not lost on her that he had waited to ask that question until they’d reached an area where no-one could look out of a window and see them.</p><p>“But I don’t want to cause any trouble for you,” he said.</p><p>She understood immediately what this might mean. If anyone did see the two of them walking alone in a secluded area, it would indeed give rise to gossip<em>. I probably ought to be more worried about this</em>, she thought. But what difference did it make, really? She wasn’t an earl’s daughter, whose reputation might be ruined by meeting a man in private without a chaperone. In the unlikely event that they were seen, well, she could say that they were walking back to the house and simply happened to be going the same way. And she <em>trusted </em>John Bates. More, in fact, than she wanted to admit to herself. She felt safe with him, even as he irritated and disturbed a part of her that she did not wish awakened.</p><p>“I’m sure it’ll be perfectly all right,” she finally said.</p><p>He nodded, and together, they walked to the edge of the village and through a field, emerging on the other side to follow a path along the stream.</p><p>It was a lovely day, and for a few moments, Anna was able to simply enjoy the warm breeze, the soft twittering of birds overhead, and the sigh of the wind through the boughs of willow trees leaning over the water. But the silence went on too long for her.</p><p>“Fancy seeing you here, Mr. Bates,” she said. “I was a bit surprised. I didn’t know you had the afternoon off as well.”</p><p>“Not quite. I had some work to do in the village for Lord Grantham today,” Mr. Bates said, “and he told me to take my time at it. He said he rather expected me to return late.”</p><p><em>I’m not going to ask what sort of work it was,</em> she thought. <em>He probably expects me to. Nothing more than picking up some mail, I’m sure. Oh, why do I feel so off balance around him? </em></p><p>Anna cleared her throat. “So… is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Bates?”</p><p>He turned to look at her, and again, she was transfixed by the dark eyes that seemed to hold so many secrets. “I wanted to speak to you about Lady Mary,” he said.</p><p>Anna dug her fingernails into her palms and took a deep breath, all too aware that he was watching her reactions closely. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“You’re closer to her than anyone else, aren’t you?” he parried.</p><p>She nodded stiffly.</p><p>“Then I wonder if you’ve noticed that she seems rather upset lately.”</p><p>Anna wondered if she should ask whether Lord Grantham wanted to know and had asked Bates to find out the answer, but on reflection, she couldn’t see that being the case. “I don’t know why she should be,” she said cautiously. “Except—well, except that it was a shock to everyone when poor Mr. Pamuk died in the house last week, and that gave us all a bad turn.”</p><p>“Yes, it was a shock, wasn’t it?” Bates asked. Even though they were walking side by side and her head was not turned towards him, she could see that his eyes were steady on her face.</p><p><em>He knows something already,</em> thought Anna instantly. <em>Oh, that’s silly. He can’t… But he does, somehow, I’m sure of it. Well, I’m not going to give away anything else!</em></p><p>“Only I’ve wondered who the last person might have been who saw him before he died,” Bates went on.</p><p>“I’m sure I don’t know.” Anna stared down at the soft green grass under her feet.</p><p>“One has to wonder what actually happened to him. Don’t you think?”</p><p>“No, Mr. Bates, I don’t wonder, and I don’t think. And I certainly don’t know what happened,” said Anna firmly. By the strictest definition, this was true. She hadn’t been in the room when Mr. Pamuk had died, and Mary’s explanations on the subject had been far from clear.</p><p>“It’s a mystery,” said Bates. “Such a healthy young man, and such a sudden death.”</p><p>“Yes, it was a real shame.” Anna struggled against her instinct to walk faster and escape the probing questions, the soft voice, the commanding presence that Mr. Bates always had. If he kept asking her, she knew that she would eventually say something she would desperately regret. And she was all too afraid that if this did happen, it would be because she <em>wanted </em>to tell him the truth.</p><p>“There was no clear reason for what happened, was there?” he asked. “And yet it did happen. Poor Mr. Pamuk passed in the middle of the night. Almost morning, wasn’t it? About four a.m.?”</p><p>“Four-thirty,” Anna replied without thinking, and then froze in horror at what she had just admitted. Her foot caught on a rock in the path, and she nearly stumbled. His hand shot out to catch her arm, steadying her. She could feel the warmth and strength of that hand, each finger seeming to leave a separate imprint on her skin beneath the sleeves of her shirtwaist. For the first time, she turned to face him.</p><p>“How do you think <em>you </em>know so much about it, Mr. Bates?” she snapped.</p><p>He hesitated. A sudden gust of wind blew up behind them, and her hat slipped free of the pins and began to gust away from her. Bates caught it in one hand and put it back on her head. He leaned close, and she felt the warmth of his breath in her ear.</p><p>“Because I know that you carried his body down the hallway, Anna. You, Lady Cora, and Lady Mary.”</p><p>She stood frozen. The wind was warm, but it suddenly bit at her cheeks. He could not have said those words. He <em>couldn’t.</em> Her heart thumped in her chest, and she looked up at him dumbly.</p><p>“Anna,” he said softly, “I <em>know</em>.”</p><p>She took a deep breath. There was no point in lying and evasions; they were both beyond that. The least she could do now was to be honest with him.</p><p>“How did you find out?” she whispered.</p><p>He led her to a bench by the stream and sat down before answering, gesturing for her to do the same She sat beside him. They were in a clearing now, where they could see anyone approaching long before a watcher had a chance to spy on them. She could not help thinking of that.</p><p>He turned towards her where they sat, his chocolate-brown eyes serious. “Because I saw you.”</p><p>“But—how?” she almost squeaked.</p><p> “I was at the top of the back stairs,” he said. “The door was slightly ajar.”</p><p>Yes, she thought. Anyone standing there would have had a perfect view of what was happening in the corridor.</p><p>“But I don’t understand, Mr. Bates,” she said. “What were you doing at the top of the staircase to begin with?”</p><p>“Sometimes I can’t sleep,” he said, shrugging. “It’s been that way ever since the war. There are nights I wake from dreams of—well, never mind what—and then I know it’s no use to lie in bed awake.”</p><p>Anna had a sudden impulse to ask him exactly what he dreamed of that disturbed him too much to get back to sleep. Were they nightmares about the war? Or was it some other memory that disturbed him? <em>You can change your life completely</em>, he had said only a few days earlier. What was it that he wanted to change? She must not ask those questions, not now, probably not ever, and she knew it.</p><p>“So I wander about. I was at the bottom of the stairs, and I heard an odd sound. I came up to investigate. I thought of robbers, to be honest, so I was moving very carefully. I heard a noise in the corridor, and I looked out to see the three of you dragging Mr. Pamuk between you.” His face crinkled in an unexpected smile. “I was very impressed by your strength, Anna.”</p><p>She fought the impulse to give him an answering smile.  Instead, she shook her head, staring at the stream.</p><p>He sighed deeply. “This is what’s disturbing Lady Mary so much, isn’t it? Whatever it was that happened? Anna, what <em>did </em>happen?”</p><p>“I can’t tell you,” she whispered, barely able to hear her own voice over the murmuring of the brook.</p><p>“But you can. I need you to trust me. Let me help you.”</p><p>Anna flicked a glance up at him, at his ruggedly handsome face with the dark hair blowing round his cheekbones in the wind, at his crinkled brow, at his concern, and she wanted to trust him, as much as she wanted to take the next breath of air.</p><p>“I…” She shut her mouth tightly and turned away.</p><p>TBC…</p><p>Remember, our FB group is at: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/203314623707500">All Things Downton Abbey</a></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. A Question of Trust</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.</p><ul>
<li><em>M. Forster</em></li>
</ul><p>Thanks to all readers, reviewers, favorite-ers, and kudo-ers, especially thesmallprint :)</p><p>+++</p><p>“Anna, do you want to tell me something?”  asked Mr. Bates, still looking at her.</p><p><em>Yes. No. Oh, why are you tormenting me this way…</em>  <em>don’t you understand what you’re asking of me? </em>She shut her lips tightly.</p><p>He leaned closer. “What is it? Please. Tell me.”</p><p>“I can’t,” she whispered.  </p><p> “Be honest with me, Anna.”</p><p>Her temper sparked at that. “I’m <em>always</em> honest.”</p><p>“I know that. I could never think you anything else.” His hand rested on the wooden bench only inches from hers. What if he suddenly moved to cover her slender fingers with his own, she wondered. Would her muscles stiffen? Or would all of her relax into the clasp of that strong hand?</p><p>“This isn’t about being honest,” she said. “But to tell you this story, the one about Mr. Pamuk…to tell anyone…” She made a helpless gesture. The habits ingrained into her were so strong. A good lady’s maid never shared the secrets of the family she worked for, even though many bad ones did exactly that. It was why a woman in service who didn’t gossip was worth her weight in gold. <em>But then again, he’s in the same household with me. It’s not at all the same as telling a stranger. He already knows so much. But… he wants me to tell him my secrets, when he hasn’t told me his. A man can have too many of those. That’s what I said, and I was right. </em></p><p>“I hope that by now, you would feel that you could tell me everything you know about it. We’ve known one another long enough,” he said quietly. “And I’ve been trustworthy, haven’t it?”</p><p>“Yes,” she said, thinking of every good thing she’d seen in this man from working side by side with him over the past year. “But—”</p><p>“But what?”</p><p>“Mr. Bates, I’ll just come out and say it. <em>You</em> haven’t trusted <em>me</em>.” She felt color flaring in her face.</p><p>“What do you mean? Tell me, Anna.”</p><p>She had never planned to explain to him exactly what she meant. But he was bothering her, stirring her up, prodding parts of her into life that she had long thought safely sleeping. Whether the sensation was good or bad, she did not know, and in some unexamined corner of herself, she was afraid to find out. At last, she turned to him fully.</p><p>“All right.  I will,” she burst out. “You never would tell me what was going on last week, and you know perfectly well what I mean. Your leg was obviously hurting. But you kept pretending it wasn’t, and you wouldn’t explain anything about it to me.”</p><p>He gave a long sigh. “That’s true. I didn’t.”</p><p>“But why not?” she demanded.</p><p>“I suppose I didn’t want you to know what a fool I’d been.” He was silent.</p><p>“Won’t you tell me what you mean? Because if you can’t… if you won’t…” Anna couldn’t finish the sentence. She felt a lump in her throat and realized with horror that tears were lurking behind her eyes.</p><p>He smiled faintly. “Then how can I expect you to be honest with me? You’re right, Anna. You deserve the truth, in all its grubby honesty.” He seemed to spend a few moments gathering his thoughts together.</p><p>“On my last day out, I went to Leeds and bought a limp corrector, or at least that’s what the owner of the shop claimed it to be. He told me that I needed to wear it night and morning, no slacking off. And so I did. I daresay I didn’t believe him when he said that it would be difficult. I didn’t think it could possibly be as difficult as all that. And…” He sighed heavily. “It was. Perhaps it was my own fault—who’s to say? I couldn’t wear it long enough to find out if it would work.”</p><p>“It’s not your fault, Mr. Bates,” Anna said instantly, without thinking. “It couldn’t possibly be. I saw what you endured for an entire week.”</p><p>“Yes—well-- and I would have continued on with it, too,” he said. “Only it wasn’t working.” He tried to smile. “Mrs. Hughes refused to allow me to keep my silence about it where she was concerned. She was a holy terror, if the truth be known. We threw the thing into one of the lakes, and that was the end of it.”</p><p>He lapsed into silence, and Anna’s heart ached. He was clearly embarrassed at having told her. <em>If only he wouldn’t be. If only he could understand that something as silly as this could never make me think less of him. Well, why can’t I tell him? I can just open my mouth and say so. I’ll do it. I’m doing it right now!</em> She did not.</p><p> “Mrs. Hughes knew about this folly; no-one else,” he said. “And now you know what a fool I was as well.”</p><p>“No.” Anna shook her head, wishing that she could say everything else she so wanted to say to him. She wondered if he’d been afraid all along that she might pity him, if she knew. <em>But I never would have done.</em> <em>Pity’s such an easy, sloppy thing to feel. I wish I could explain that I could never feel any emotion as low as that for him. </em></p><p>“Thank you for telling me,” she finally said.</p><p>He nodded, and a silence fell between them, one without tension or nerves, one filled with the soft chatter of the stream and the twittering of birds.</p><p>“I do <em>want </em>to tell you all about what happened with Mr. Pamuk,” admitted Anna, picking up the thread of that conversation as if it had never been dropped.  “As much as I know, at least. But—oh, I don’t know. Sometimes it’s not only about what we <em>want </em>to say. It’s that we’re not free to speak. It’s not my secret to tell. That’s what I’m afraid of.”</p><p>He nodded. “I do understand that, and I respect your loyalty to the family.”</p><p>“And you’re loyal to them too,” she said.</p><p>“Yes.” Bates looked into the distance. “I owe Lord Grantham everything. I’ve saved his life, and he has saved mine. He is the only man in the world I truly trust.”</p><p>Anna could not stop a thought from darting through her mind at those words. <em>But what about a woman? Do you trust me, Mr. Bates? You must do, or you wouldn’t have told me that secret. But how far would your trust go?</em></p><p>He turned back towards her. “But what I’m afraid of, Anna, is that this business with Mr. Pamuk won’t remain a secret. No matter what you do or don’t say to anyone.”</p><p>A chill ran up her spine. “What do you mean, Mr. Bates?”</p><p>“I mean that we don’t know who else might have seen something, or suspected something.  There’s a lot of curiosity downstairs, and too many people who aren’t interested in only minding their own business. Given time…” He let the words trail off.</p><p>“O’Brien and Thomas,” she whispered.</p><p>He nodded. “They’re both like dogs on the hunt. If they get the slightest clue that something’s not exactly what it should be, they’ll nose out the truth.”</p><p>“And if they find out anything at all, they’ll never let it rest.” Anna shuddered. Mr. Bates was following her own thoughts exactly.</p><p>“Three might keep a secret, if two be in their graves,” he said.</p><p>Anna looked up, startled.</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p> “Nothing,” she said. “Only I was thinking exactly that same thing during breakfast.” <em>Perhaps our minds are working in tune,</em> she thought. <em>That’s got to be a good sign. </em></p><p>As she tried to work up her nerve to start talking, Mr. Bates looked sharply from side to side.</p><p>“What is it?” she asked.</p><p>“We’ve been sitting here too long,” he said. “We ought to keep moving. If anyone is watching us, that’ll throw them off the scent.”</p><p>“Do you really think anyone is?”</p><p>“I honestly don’t know, but I’d rather not take the chance.”</p><p>He put out his hand to help her up, and she could not help being glad at the excuse to feel if his fingers were really as strong as she’d thought. <em>They certainly are.</em></p><p>“This way,” he said. They walked a bit further, into the center of a small meadow. They stood in the midst of a patch of monkshood, the bell-shaped heads of the blue flowers nodding in the breeze. Some of the grasses were as high as Anna’s head. It was an ideal spot, she thought. They’d be able to hear anyone coming towards them for some distance.</p><p>“I’m not asking about this thing with Mr. Pamuk out of some sort of idle curiosity,” he said. “You understand that, Anna?”</p><p>“I know that.” She bent her head. The moment had come. “There’s no-one else I would tell about this,” she said. “In the household or out, I mean. But I do trust you, Mr. Bates.”</p><p>He nodded. “I will try to be worthy of your trust, Anna.”</p><p>“I can’t believe that you would ever be anything else.”</p><p>The wind blew softly, and they stood very close together. She was touching his hand with the side of her little finger, so lightly, so softly, that it was possibly to pretend it wasn’t happening at all.  At the same time, that touch felt as intimate as any kiss.</p><p>Anna gave a deep sigh. “All right. I’ll tell you what I know.”  </p><p>She outlined him the story from the moment Mary had knocked on her door, sticking to the facts, describing every moment as accurately as possible. Anna skimmed as discreetly as she could over the question of what had actually happened between her mistress and Mr. Pamuk in that bed, and Mr. Bates made no comment about that, for which she was very grateful. He was silent throughout, clearly listening intently, and there was no judgment in his face at all. “Then we all went back to bed,” Anna finished. “It must have been nearly five by then. It’s a miracle we weren’t caught. But then, I suppose we were in a way, because <em>you </em>saw us. I suppose I don’t really know if anyone else could have done. Perhaps Gwen woke up for a moment when I came back in the room. But she’s a trustworthy one, so I wouldn’t worry about her.”</p><p>He nodded. “Is that everything?”</p><p>“I can’t think of anything I left out,” she said, a bit uneasily.</p><p>“Has anything else happened since, I mean?”</p><p><em>I ought to have known he’d ask that,</em> thought Anna. “Well, er.” She began twisting her finger together. It was one thing to tell him about the events of that night. But now, he was asking a question that would lead to revealing so much more than that, because Mary had specifically begged her not to tell about what had happened since. She herself hadn’t even told Mary’s own mother everything that she knew about the last two nights.</p><p><em>I saw him. Oh, dear God, I saw him. He’ll come for me. He’s waiting. He’s asking why I didn’t save him, why I didn’t stop him from dying.</em> Mary had cried those words so desperately. And then she had leaped up and run to the window, so swiftly that Anna could not catch her until she was fumbling with the sash, ready to jump.</p><p><em>I should have known from the start that I could not tell half a story</em>, she thought.<em> He needs to know everything. And if Lady Mary carries on the way she has been doing, the truth will come out anyway.  </em></p><p> “Do you understand that I’d never tell anyone at all otherwise? Not even you? ” she asked almost fiercely. “The only reason I’m doing this is to save Lady Mary.”</p><p>“Yes, Anna, yes. I know your loyalty.”</p><p>She looked up at Mr. Bates and began speaking rapdily. “Lady Mary has been waking in the middle of the night, ever since it happened. She’s terrified, screaming and crying that Mr. Pamuk is after her, that he blames her for not keeping him alive. I know—I’ve told her that it doesn’t make any sense at all, but she’s not herself during those times, she doesn’t even remember it the next day. She’s eaten up with guilt. I… I caught her trying to jump out a window last night.”</p><p><br/>At his intake of breath, she hurried on. “I caught her in plenty of time. But I’m afraid, so afraid, that she’s going to lose her reason.”</p><p>“Have you told Lady Cora?”</p><p>Anna could not meet his eyes at that. “No. But it’s because Lady Mary begged me not to. She made me promise. Don’t you see? I can’t just tell her mother about this, and certainly not Lord Grantham. If she keeps on this way… I’ll have no choice but to break my promise. And I don’t want to. I desperately don’t.”</p><p>“I see what you mean,” said Mr. Bates. His brow puckered. “You’re caught on a dilemma, all right.”</p><p>“But I think there’s a way out of it,” Anna said, almost eagerly. “Every night, she’s said the same thing over and over again. ‘If I could only know. If I only find out what really happened, why he really died.’ Don’t you see, this is why I have to find out what was behind Mr. Pamuk’s death? If I can learn why, then I can tell Lady Mary, and she’d let go of her guilt. It’s the only way to save her and keep my promise too. We could lay his ghost to rest, once and for all, I know we could.”</p><p>The moving red chair in the guest bedroom. The clot of dark red shadow in the seat. The same chair, appearing in Mary’s room, in the corner that had been empty… <em>No! I’ll sound absolutely mad if I tell him about any of that nonsense. </em></p><p> “It’s not that I think there’s really a ghost, or anything like that,” she added quickly. “Of course there isn’t. We’ve got more than enough to be going on with; we don’t need to drag in that sort of silliness. But do you see, Mr. Bates? This is why I’m trying to find out what really happened to Mr. Pamuk. If I could only know, then I could tell Lady Mary. And she’d never believe a lie from me—it has to <em>be </em>the actual truth. I just don’t know exactly how to get any further with it. I’ve reached a dead end.”</p><p>A wind blew up then, a sudden warm gust from the east, sending tendrils of her hair flying around her face and nearly knocking off her hat. Mr. Bates reached out and placed a lock back over her ear, looking  down into her face.  “Anna, I think that between the two of us, we could find a way out.”</p><p>“D you’ll mean you’d help me learn the truth, whatever it is?” she asked, still feeling the warmth of his fingers as they lightly brushed her cheek.</p><p>“I mean that I<em> will</em> do it, if you’ll accept my help.”</p><p>Her heart leapt. “Of course I will.”</p><p> “Mind you, I don’t know if it’s possible at all.”</p><p>“I don’t either,” she admitted.</p><p>“But if it can be done, I think we can manage it together.”</p><p><em>Together.</em> She liked the sound of that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Secrets and Speculations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.”<br/><em>Agatha Christie</em></p>
  <p>Thanks to all readers, reviewers, kudo-ers, favoriters, and followers, especially: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/peasemealBrose/pseuds/peasemealBrose">peasemealBrose</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesmallprint/pseuds/thesmallprint">thesmallprint</a> </p>
  <p>“Do you think we actually <em>can </em>find out anything more?” asked Anna. They were sitting on large,flat boulders in the center of a small clearing at one side of the meadow, talking quietly about the new plan, and she didn’t know if they’d got much of anywhere so far.</p>
  <p>Bates shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. But I agree with you. If it can be done at all, we’ve got to solve this mystery before someone else does, for Lady Mary’s sake. And we’ve got to work together, because I don’t want you getting in any trouble.”</p>
  <p>“So you think you can keep me out of trouble, Mr. Bates?” She raised her eyebrows. “We’ll see.”</p>
  <p>“I’ll certainly try.”</p>
  <p>Anna had to fight down a blush. She covered the silent moment by pulling her hat a bit further down to shade her face from the bright March sun.</p>
  <p>“I wish we could know more about what Mr. Pamuk said and did while he was here,” she said. “That would be such a help.”</p>
  <p>“I wonder how we might manage it,” said Bates.</p>
  <p>“We could try to find out more about what happened on that ride they all took,” Anna said, feeling doubtful.</p>
  <p>Bates shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I heard that Lady Mary sent Lynch back before they even got started properly.”</p>
  <p>Anna wondered whether her mistress had dismissed the groom in hopes of some time alone with Mr. Pamuk, but she could hear how dreadful the words would sound. <em>Of course, Mr. Bates already knows that the Turkish gentleman died in Mary’s room and we carried him down the hall, so I suppose it doesn’t make much difference. </em></p>
  <p>“I don’t know if she and… ah… anyone else… were quite <em>alone</em>,” Bates went on, with the trick he had of picking up on her thoughts. She’d noticed it before. “But there clearly wasn’t anyone present from downstairs. So I think we’re stuck there.”</p>
  <p>Anna tapped her fingers against the rock. “What if we came up with a list? I mean, of all the things we know about Mr. Pamuk’s death, or the ones we <em>need</em> to know.”</p>
  <p>“You’re a regular Arthur Conan Doyle.”</p>
  <p>“I don’t know about that, but I do like his stories.  So what do you say that we try it?”</p>
  <p>“I’d say yes.”</p>
  <p>Anna rummaged in her bag and came up with a sheet of paper, left over from the letter she’d written to her cousin. A further search turned up a stub of pencil.</p>
  <p>“So—er, wait a moment—“ Anna tried flattening the sheet of paper on the boulder, then balancing it on her lap. “We just need to figure out what sort of questions ought we to ask—oh, bother!” The pencil slipped through the thin paper and stabbed her in the leg.</p>
  <p>“Here. Let me.” Bates took the paper from her hand and spread it neatly on a satchel he was carrying, which he placed on his lap.</p>
  <p>“All right.” Anna cleared her throat. “I was thinking about means, motive, possible suspects, and opportunities to commit the crime. Er, if it actually was a crime, which I can’t say that we really know as yet…well, I never <em>claimed </em>to be Sherlock Holmes,” she added a bit defensively.</p>
  <p>Bates was writing the items on the paper. She moved closer and saw that he had beautiful copperplate handwriting, even with a pencil stub. Because of the angle of the paper, she needed to move very close indeed. </p>
  <p>He looked up after finishing the list, and she suddenly realized that she was much too close to him. Or at least, she ought to have felt as if their nearness was disturbing, as she normally did whenever a young man tried to move in towards her. Or perhaps this <em>did</em> feel disturbing, but in a very different way.</p>
  <p>“As it is, the list might tell us more about what we <em>don’t </em>know than what we do,” he said. “Did you learn anything from that doctor’s locum Smithson, though?”</p>
  <p>“How did you know that’s why I went to the tearoom with him?” asked Anna, surprised.</p>
  <p>The corners of his eyes crinkled up. “Let’s just say that I had a feeling, Anna.”</p>
  <p>“I suppose we could put that under ‘means.’ Mr. Smithson said that Doctor Clarkson thought the sudden heart attack was very odd. Mr. Pamuk was such a healthy young man. And then he said…” She took a deep breath, hoping that she didn’t sound like a complete fool. “He said that he’d seen a case like that in medical school once. And it turned out to be poison.”</p>
  <p>His face did not flicker.</p>
  <p>“What do you know about that?” she asked suspiciously.</p>
  <p>“What makes you think I know anything?” he countered.</p>
  <p>“Because I can tell when you’re covering something up, Mr. Bates,” she said. “If you don’t tell me, I ‘ll find out the answer anyway.”</p>
  <p>That did seem to give him pause.</p>
  <p>“It’s nothing, really,” he said. “But yes, that did call to mind a conversation I had with his lordship only a couple of days ago.”</p>
  <p>“What was it?” she asked. “Do you remember exactly what he said?”</p>
  <p>“Yes, I likely remember every word. I’ve got a good ear for recalling conversations; I’m rather like William, in that regard.” Bates seemed to think for a moment, and then he went on.</p>
  <p>“I was helping him to finish dressing before dinner, and somehow, we got onto the subject of the… death. He said that he thought it was an odd business, because Mr. Pamuk looked like the last man on earth who ought to have gone as suddenly as that. He seemed so very fit.”</p>
  <p><em>He certainly did</em>, thought Anna. She nodded for him to go on.</p>
  <p>“He asked me if I’d seen any signs, and I replied that I didn’t have much of a chance to study the gentleman. And then he said something that was rather odd. His lordship asked if I didn’t suppose there was anything sinister in it, because every day, the papers warned us of German spies, I said, of course, that I doubted that, because anyone wanting to poison his food would have to get past Mrs. Patmore. He  agreed, but he added that this was true only unless she were a spy herself.”</p>
  <p>“That’s rather silly. Of course I shouldn’t say that if Lord Grantham were here,” she added hastily.</p>
  <p>“We’ve all got our silly moments, upstairs and down,” said Bates. “At any rate, Lady Edith tapped at the door then, and both of them went to dinner. And that’s what I  was thinking of. But I don’t see how there could possibly be anything in it.”</p>
  <p>“To the idea that Mrs. Patmore was a German spy?” Anna asked dryly.</p>
  <p> Bates shook his head. “I meant the idea that Mr. Pamuk could have been poisoned.”</p>
  <p>“But Dr. Clarkson likely wouldn’t have picked up on that, if it was what happened,” argued Anna. “The possibility would never have crossed his mind in the first place. He wouldn’t be looking for poison.”</p>
  <p>Bates looked across the meadow, his brow creasing into an abstracted frown. “That’s a point. But it still doesn’t solve the problem of how on earth any poisoning could have happened.”</p>
  <p>Anna nodded, unsure where to go from there. She tucked the pencil back in her bag, still thinking, and her fingers knocked against a small glass bottle.  Realizing what it was, she smacked her forehead and then took it out.</p>
  <p> “Oh, I’m such a goose, Mr. Bates! There’s something else, and I forgot all about it. I found this in the chest of drawers in the guest bedroom, the one where Mr. Pamuk was staying.” She handed him the small bottle. “I meant to ask Mr. Smithson about it, but I … er… got distracted.” <em>Because I saw you standing on the street and staring into the tea shop. Staring at me. Or were you? Perhaps it’s only vanity to think you were. But you did distract me right and proper.</em> Wild horses could not have dragged the statement from her, of course.</p>
  <p>Bates uncorked it and sniffed at the dark contents. “It’s laudanum.”</p>
  <p>She nodded.</p>
  <p>“But that’s not poison,” he said. “An overdose of laudanum would put someone to sleep, not cause a heart attack. And it would take effect right away.”</p>
  <p>“You’re right,” Anna said, almost reluctantly. “It seemed like such a good clue, but I ought to have known better really. My grandmam used to have dreadful bouts of toothache. She always took laudanum, and it put her out within minutes, but she’d be right as rain otherwise. If Mr. Pamuk took this, he could never have… er… made it to Lady Mary’s bedroom. I was very foolish not to think of this earlier.”</p>
  <p>Grandmother Kerensa, her dark blue eyes still sharp and glittering, measuring every move that Anna’s stepfather made. He was handsome and young and devil-may-care, and he was always groping at Anna and smacking her bottom and trying to pass it off as a joke. Her mother would smile tightly and pretend she didn’t see, but her grandmam would protect her. <em>After she died, it all changed… and then… </em></p>
  <p>Bates was saying something to her, she realized. Anna shook her head minutely. “I’m sorry. I was woolgathering. What did you say?”</p>
  <p>“Only that you could never be foolish, Anna.”</p>
  <p>She gave a small, embarrassed laugh. “Er… well, I don’t know about that.” But his words touched her far more than she wanted to admit. She glanced away, hoping that her feelings didn’t show on her face.</p>
  <p>When she looked back, Bates was peering at the bottle in his hand. The frown deepened. “Anna, it’s half empty.”</p>
  <p>“I didn’t notice that before,” said Anna. “Perhaps he had toothache himself and carried it with him? He took the other half at some other time?”</p>
  <p>“Very possible,” said Bates. “But no matter what, laudanum isn’t a poison that would cause a heart attack in anyone, especially an hour after swallowing it.”</p>
  <p> Anna shook her head. “And I suppose I don’t even know if this particular bottle of laudanum has anything to do with Mr. Pamuk. A deal of guests stay in that room, and it would be easy to miss such a small bottle in the dresser.”</p>
  <p>Bates tapped a finger against his chin. “Nobody’s stayed in that bachelor’s room since Mr. Pamuk. Right?”</p>
  <p>“No-one else has. So… Do you suppose it should be searched again? To see if I missed anything?” Anna forced herself to ask. She would have preferred being thrown into the middle of the stream to going back into that room, but she was not about to admit her feelings. </p>
  <p>“Yes, but wait until we can go together and look for clues.” He looked at her intently. “I don’t want you to go there alone.” </p>
  <p><em>Could he know anything about what I saw in there? </em>She wondered for a moment. <em>Oh, how could he, when there’s no such thing as ghosts!  </em>I suppose we should. Two heads are better than one,” Anna said, as lightly as she could.</p>
  <p>Images crept back into her mind, disconnected moments from that late afternoon only a couple of days earlier. The pools of darkness in the corners. The writhing patterns in the Persian carpet. The shadowed red chair. The shape that crouched in the seat…</p>
  <p>
    <em>Stop it right now, Anna Smith! You’ve got more sense than that. </em>
  </p>
  <p>TBC… and check out our FB page at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/203314623707500">All Things Downton Abbey</a>! :) </p>
</blockquote>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. The Game Is Afoot</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a few seconds they looked silently into each other’s eyes, and the distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable.</p><ul>
<li>Leo Tolstoy, <em>War and Peace</em>
</li>
</ul><p>A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesmallprint/pseuds/thesmallprint">thesmallprint</a> </p><p> </p><p>“I must admit, I’m stuck on what his lordship said about poison,” Anna said, forcing her mind away from the shreds of memory. “You’re right, it’s hard to imagine that this is anything but nonsense, yet I can’t get it out of my mind.”</p><p>Bates nodded. “Perhaps we ought to follow your instincts. At least until the trail runs cold.”</p><p>“All right.” Anna sighed. “We know the laudanum from the guest room can’t be it. Could the poison have been put in anything Mr. Pamuk ate or drank?”</p><p>“It could only have been at dinner,” said Bates.</p><p>“So… let’s suppose for a perfectly mad moment that some sort of poison<em> could</em> have got into the food that way...” fumbled Anna. “I mean… how?”</p><p>“We’ve ruled out Mrs. Patmore. And I hope you’re not going to say that you think Daisy is the German spy,” Bates said, one corner of his mouth going up. Anna couldn’t help wonder what his face looked like with a real smile. <em>Have I ever seen one, really?</em></p><p>“That I’m not,” she said. “But who else could have put poison into a dish going up for dinner?”</p><p>Bates shrugged. “Any one of us, really. The dishes sit out on the table before going up, and it’s not as if anyone is watching them. But I can’t picture anyone downstairs having any motive to poison a visitor.”</p><p>“Thomas and O’Brien might, if they thought they could get anything out of it.” Anna scowled. “But I don’t see how there could been-- oh!” She gasped as a new idea occurred to her. “Mr. Evelyn Napier!”</p><p>“What about him?”</p><p>“Wouldn’t <em>he</em> have been sitting near Mr. Pamuk? He could have poisoned his food after it was on the table, couldn’t he?”</p><p>Bates shifted his weight slightly on the stone seat. “Very likely. But I don’t see what motive he would have. He and Mr. Pamuk were very friendly from all I’ve heard.”</p><p>“I don’t know either,” Anna admitted. “But it’s the only clue we’ve got at the moment, because I just can’t believe anyone in the house, upstairs or downstairs, would have had anything to do with it.”</p><p>“There’s something else as well,” said Bates. “We were trying to figure out if there’d been any other time when Mr. Pamuk and Lady Mary could have been alone together. Dinner is the closest thing I can think of. While a table for ten isn’t quite what I would call alone, who knows what sort of private conversation they may have had when nobody else was paying attention.”</p><p>“That’s not much help, is it.” Anna frowned. “I wasn’t there, and neither were you.”</p><p>He smiled very faintly again, and his eyes crinkled up at the corners in a way that made her want to smile as well, even in the middle of a conversation as serious as this one. “But I can think of someone who was.”</p><p>“Thomas?” She snorted in a fashion that was less than ladylike. “He’d be less than no help at all.”</p><p>“That he wouldn’t, but I meant someone else.”</p><p>“I don’t think that Carson is going to give us a detailed description… oh, you mean William! Of course. Do you think he’d really tell us?”</p><p>“We can only try,” said Bates. “But not until tomorrow, I think.”</p><p><em>Tomorrow.</em> He meant that they’d continue to work together, perhaps that they would do so until the mystery was either solved or they had to admit there was no solution. Despite how serious all of this was, she found herself smiling more broadly than in a very long time.</p><p>A breeze ruffled his hair, bringing the sharp sweet smells of spring and growing green things. A bird sang in the distance. Anna glanced up at the sky and saw that the sun had passed its zenith and was beginning to sink. She shifted, realizing that her muscles had become cramped from long sitting, and at that moment, her stomach gave a rather loud rumble. </p><p>“Have you had anything to eat since breakfast?” asked Bates, extending her a hand and helping her to her feet.</p><p>“Nothing but a bath bun, and I must say, I’m terribly hungry,” she said. They had spent much longer in talking than she’d realized.  “But I’ve still got hours before I need to be back, and I don’t think we’re done talking about subjects I don’t want anyone else to overhear, do you?”</p><p>“No. But there isn’t anyplace in the village where we could talk privately either. And I don’t know if it would be a good idea for us to be seen together,” said Bates.</p><p>“I suppose you’re right.” Anna grimaced. “I can just imagine the gossip.” She thought of how she had seen O’Brien in the village, and then again on the street. <em>Could she possibly have anything to do with… oh, that’s too ridiculous for words.  But is it, really?</em></p><p><em>”</em>I’ve got an idea,” said Bates. “I’ll go to the village pub, get some food, and bring it back. How does that sound?”</p><p><em>Wonderful,</em> though Anna. <em>Delightful. Oh, Mr. Bates, how I would love to sit and eat with you, and watch the sun shimmer on the brook, and talk about something besides the murder, for a while</em>.</p><p>“That sounds fine,” she said cautiously instead.</p><p>Mr. Bates was gone for a long time. Anna sat on the stone seat, looking out at the chattering brook, keeping her mind a blank. There were so many things she might think of now, so many thoughts clamoring for her attention, all of the centering around Mr. Bates. She was determined to allow none of them into her mind, not at the moment, and she actually managed it. At some point, she would not be able to hold back all the thinking and worrying, but she was not going to let it happen now.</p><p>When he came walking back towards her, carrying a sack, she had moved to sit on another rock, behind a clump of tall grass, and she studied him when he couldn’t yet see her. More about this… she thought that he looked preoccupied. What really went through his head? What sort of secrets did he have? <em>A man can have too many. </em>The phrase came back to her again, mocking, haunting.</p><p>Then he saw her, and his face lit up, and she forgot about whatever secrets he might have.</p><p>The corned beef sandwiches and pickles were exquisite, and even the chips, rather flabby and lukewarm after all the time that had clearly passed since they were bought, seemed like the most delicious food she’d ever tasted. Bates spread out a checked cloth on the grass, and they sat and ate and talked about nothing, laughing, easy in each other’s company. He was so handsome in the long rays of the late afternoon sun, she thought. With the wind in his hair and the sun lending color to his cheeks, she could easily see the boy he had been.</p><p>As the shadows finally lengthened towards dusk, he rose and gave her his hand. “Come on; let’s get back to Downton before it’s dark,” he said. They walked back in the long summer evening, and he put a hand on her arm when they reached the part of the path that led behind the folly.</p><p>“One of us ought to start back first, I suppose,” she said, understanding why he had stopped them where he had. If they went any further, they would be close enough to the house so that anyone might see them. When Anna was supervising the other maids cleaning the library, she often looked through the windows, and they had a perfect view of the folly and the paths surrounding it.</p><p>He nodded, and she felt a silly pang of disappointment. What did she want to do, provide gossip fodder for the undermaids for weeks to come?</p><p>“It’s been a lovely afternoon,” he said.</p><p>“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “We, er, got a good start on figuring out what we’ll need to do to learn what really happened to poor Mr. Pamuk.” <em>Oh, how dreadfully clumsy that was.</em></p><p>“That we did,” he said. “But there’s a great deal to do if we want to solve that mystery, and I don’t think we have much time to do it in.”</p><p>“Do you have the feeling that time is running out?” asked Anna. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to bring on the melodrama,” she swiftly added. “But it does feel that way, because of Lady Mary’s state of mind, I suppose.”</p><p>“Yes, it does.” His eyes seemed oddly shadowed for a moment, but then Anna decided she had imagined it.</p><p> “And what I keep coming back to, Mr. Bates, is that it still doesn’t make any sense. Why would anyone have wanted to poison him? Or whatever it was that happened. Who would benefit from it? Mr. Napier is the only person I can think of who might have done it, but that’s only because nobody else in the house would have. So that’s not an answer.”</p><p>“It’s certainly a question,” said Bates. “But I have no idea what the answer could be. I think we ought to take it one step at a time.”</p><p>“I suppose so… I’m not sure how far we really got today. But it was good. I did find out something through Mr. Smithson, anyway, and that’s the best bit of evidence we have to go on at present,” said Anna.</p><p>“Do you think you’ll see him again?” Bates asked in a neutral voice.</p><p>Anna shrugged.</p><p>“You ought to get out more.” He cleared his throat. “You should have a young man, Anna.”</p><p>“I don’t want one,” Anna said, quite truthfully. “I just… don’t like young men. And if that Mr. Smithson doesn’t like it, he can lump it.” </p><p>“He might have other ideas.”</p><p>Was it possible that Mr. Bates sounded almost jealous? No, it wasn’t, Anna decided. “Well, that’s no concern of mine,” she said primly.</p><p>There was just the faintest twinkle in his eye. That, she decided, she was sure of.</p><p>“Why don’t you go back first?” he asked. “I’ll follow ten or fifteen minutes after that.”</p><p>He was leaning towards her, and she suddenly wanted him to do… something. Her mind helpfully presented several ideas as to what that something might be, all of which were bad ideas. <em>Ergh.</em></p><p>Then he stepped back, and she felt the cooler air between them. It was so much better that way, of course. It was far too dangerous to do anything here that a sharp-eyed observer might have a chance to see after all. If O’Brien had gone down to get a book that Lady Cora wanted, or if Thomas were in the library for some odd reason, for instance… well, Anna couldn’t be sure that it was impossible to see anything from those windows that was going on behind the folly. </p><p>So it was much better, much safer, for her to smile and say, “Goodbye, Mr. Bates,” which she did.</p><p>“Goodbye, Anna.” He reached out and pressed her hand, giving her fingers a brief squeeze.</p><p>She watched him walk back to the house for a long time, still feeling her palms tingle in memory of his touch.</p><p>Anna walked back the rest of the way alone. For better or worse, this gave her plenty of time to think, and they were the thoughts she had been able to suppress earlier but could now no longer avoid. She had cultivated complacency and developed a reputation for calm. She was a steady woman, as everyone said. At that moment, she was quite sure that everyone was wrong. When it came to Mr. Bates, she felt about as steady as a sparrow in a tempest.</p><p>What to do about him, how to think of him? Could she decide that they were only two friends working on a mystery, and nothing more? She honestly did not know. Sometimes Anna was at ease with him; other times, she was so uncomfortable. He disturbed her pleasant, uneventful world, no doubt about it. She’d led a busy, contented life at the Abbey for more than five years. She had worked her way up to the position of head housemaid, and she knew that once Mary did find a husband, she herself would become a full-time lady’s maid. She was well aware of how lucky she was to have this place, with good pay, pleasant work, her pick of Mary’s handed-down clothing, the chance to travel to beautiful houses and exotic settings, and the fulfillment of a job well done.</p><p>But then there was this… this <em>thing </em>between herself and Mr. Bates over the past year, whatever it might or might not really be. She never knew what he really felt about her. Sometimes she thought he was giving her clear clues. Then again, sometimes she was sure she had imagined it all, and those moments were almost a relief.</p><p>Because when she thought that perhaps there really might be something between herself and Bates, she became almost angry. How could there possibly be any future in any sort of relationship between them? Valets rarely married or formed permanent liaisons, and lady’s maids never did. Even in a household as generous and easygoing as the Crawleys, Anna couldn’t see it being different. So even if he did feel something for her… she could not, <em>would </em>not throw away her reputation in a moment of passion that could lead to nothing permanent. She could not let herself be overwhelmed by everything that she could feel for him. If she needed a reminder of just how dangerous that sort of abandon could really be, she need look no further than her mistress.</p><p>She shivered at the thought, wrapping her arms around herself briefly as she rounded the corner of the path heading back to the house. Now, Mr. Bates knew about that too, that scandalous night that had ended up with a Turkish ambassador dead in Lady Mary’s bed. It was little consolation that he’d already known the most important point, and that she’d only filled in the details. After all, there could scarcely be an innocent reason for three women carrying a man’s dead body down a corridor at four-thirty in the morning. But if he could figure it out on his own, then how many others could too?</p><p>O’Brien shrewd eyes when she saw her in the post office, and then walking with Mr. Smithson.</p><p>Thomas’s keen, calculating gaze that morning.</p><p>How much did they know, or guess? And the two of them, together, with their cleverness, their ambitions…</p><p>Anna had reached the rear yard. She opened the door to the lower hall, sighing, feeling more sure than ever that she needed to find out what had really happened. But Bates was right. She had to be careful. And they would need to work together, as he’d said, would need to keep meeting. She tried to pretend her heart wasn’t giving a happy leap at that thought.</p><p> It was one thing to daydream about Mr. Bates when there seemed to be no real hope of anything ever happening between them. But she’d received clearer hints today than ever before that he really might notice her. Perhaps… even care for her. No. This was too dangerous, too impossible. Nothing could ever come of it. They were working together as partners, and that was all. She certainly needed his help to learn the truth. For as she knew, she was racing against the clock with Lady Mary.</p><p>TBC… I’m REALLY sorry it took so long for this update, but I’m already working on Ch 15.  in the next chapter, Anna and Bates will find a lot more clues, and so will we! 😉</p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. The Moon Rides High</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Then the traveller in the dark, Thanks you for your tiny spark, He could not see which way to go, If you did not twinkle so. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, traditional. </em></li>
</ul>
<p>A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/previouslyjade/pseuds/previouslyjade">previouslyjade</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesmallprint/pseuds/thesmallprint">thesmallprint</a>.</p>
<p>
  <strong>Tuesday, 9:30 pm. </strong>
</p>
<p>“You came back rather early last night, Anna,” said Mary from her dressing table.</p>
<p>“No, not really,” said Anna, moving towards the closet with Mary’s dress and underskirt in hand.   </p>
<p>Mary raised her eyebrows. “Didn’t you return just in time for dinner? I shouldn’t have minded if you wanted to take a few more hours, you know.”</p>
<p>“I know, my lady. But I didn’t go to Leeds to see my cousin. Her children are all sick with measles.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry. What did you do?”</p>
<p>“Er…” Anna came back to the table, picked up a silver-backed brush, and began running it through Mary’s hair busily. “Rested for a while, napped, read a book, went into the village, met a friend for tea… walked along the stream.”</p>
<p>“It sounds more amusing than the day I had,” Mary sighed.</p>
<p>“How so?” Anna asked cautiously.</p>
<p>“Oh—I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I helped Mama with the preparations for that May Day celebration in the village. I ate lunch. I worked on a dreadful piece of embroidery that ought to be thrown in one of the lakes. I did nothing, really. It’s hard to believe how exhausting it can be, doing nothing. I’ve been so tired, lately.”</p>
<p>Anna nodded. She knew exactly why Mary was so tired, and she hoped that she would hear no more questions about it.  </p>
<p>Mary stared into the dressing table mirror, her eyes very large and dark. “Anna, I was thinking that you might do something for me.”</p>
<p>“But of course, my lady,” said Anna, beginning to braid Mary’s hair for the night.</p>
<p>“I’m terribly sorry to ask this of you,” said Mary. “But I was wondering if you might be willing to stay in the dressing room tonight. The bed should be made up. It’s just that I haven’t been sleeping well at all. It’s almost as if I’m having nightmares, and always the same one, every night…but I never remember anything the next day.  I’ll feel so much better if you’re here. I promise it isn’t for long. You can borrow one of my nightgowns for tonight.”</p>
<p>Anna nodded. “It’s no trouble at all,” she said, quite truthfully.</p>
<p>Mary let out all her breath in a rush. “Thank you, Anna.”</p>
<p>After Mary slipped between the sheets of her own bed, Anna went to the little antechamber, similar to Lord Grantham’s dressing room but smaller. She slipped on the cotton nightrail and lay down in the little bed, which was narrow but had a good mattress. There were plenty of pillows and thick coverlets. Anna closed her eyes and luxuriated in the feel of the linen sheets. It was actually very comfortable, and even a pleasant experience to have her own little room. The problem was that she knew it could not be hidden from the household. The secret would likely get out by morning. She thought that Cora could manage everyone upstairs, if any questions came up. But downstairs… Anna pictured Thomas and O’Brien whispering, their dark heads pressed closely together.   </p>
<p><em>Well, no point in worrying about it now.</em> Anna turned off the bedside lamp and fell asleep almost instantly.</p>
<p>She was in the corridor again, standing under the harsh gaslights that picked out the dark polished door from the darkness surrounding her. The gas hissed softly. <em>Sss. Sss. Sss.</em></p>
<p>She should not open that door. She <em>must </em>not open that door.</p>
<p>She watched her hand turn the knob anyway, with the inevitability of all actions in dreams. Compulsion drove her, not desire. Something in her was screaming to turn back, to turn around and run, to get out. But she could not.</p>
<p>The door swung wide.</p>
<p>The guest bedroom stood before her, empty and silent. Of course it was. There was no reason for anybody to be here, anyone besides herself, compelled by a force that could not be stopped or denied. Slowly, Anna walked into the room. Her footsteps made tiny creaking sounds. The window was slightly ajar, and a cold wind blew in towards her, the curtains flying out in a swirl of gauzy fabric. A shaft of moonlight spread across the red Persian carpet. The designs seemed to writhe under her feet as she continued to walk into the room, just as they had done before.</p>
<p>Everything surrounding her was still, silent, unmoving. <em>Please, please stay that way,</em> Anna silently begged. <em>Please remain what you really are, what you must be, silent shapes and no more</em>. The bed. The dresser. The… the chair. She could not, must not, look at the chair.</p>
<p>No. Anna knew that she must.</p>
<p>She measured her movements precisely, stopping in front of the chest of drawers. The chair was directly to the right, nearly touching the dresser on one side. Some detail nagged at her mind. <em>Wait… is that exactly where the chair was before? Seems like it was further to the right of the table, across from the bed</em>. Well, it didn’t matter, and she’d best get on to what did.</p>
<p>Anna raised her head, looked to the right, and stared into the seat of the chair.</p>
<p>It was empty.</p>
<p>Relief rushed through her. How stupid she’d been. Of course there was nothing in the chair. It had been empty before, too. She’d imagined it all. When she’d thought that she had seen the same red chair in Mary’s bedroom the night before, that had itself doubtless been illusion. There was nothing to worry about, nothing at all.</p>
<p>Anna gave a long sigh of happiness; the end of the fear was an exquisite pleasure all its own. She smiled into the mirror above the dresser.</p>
<p>The reflection of Mr. Pamuk smiled back at her.</p>
<p>The floor dropped out from under her feet. She swayed, teetered back and forth, clutched helplessly at the dresser, half turned, and began sliding onto the floor.</p>
<p>A hand grasped onto her arm, steadying her.</p>
<p>“No, no ,no,” she whimpered. “Please… no… don’t…”</p>
<p>The hand was strong and sure. An arm turned her round, inexorably. She could only make tiny squeaking sounds now. The hand went under her chin. A finger tipped her head up to look directly into the eyes of Mr. Pamuk. <em>He was behind me all along,</em> she thought.</p>
<p>There was a point at which terror lapsed into a lack of feeling. Anna understood that then. She felt nothing. She could only stare into the face of the dead Mr. Pamuk.</p>
<p>But he didn’t look dead. She wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. He was not a grinning skull with shreds of flesh clinging to his bones. Perhaps it might almost have been easier if he were. Instead, he was as perfect as he had been in life. <em>He’s beautiful,</em> she had told Ivy on that night the week before.</p>
<p>His dark eyes glittered. His smile was generous and wide. He was beautiful still, but he could not be, because he was not alive. She knew it at once. It was a rigidity in his muscles, a stiffness in his stance, too many little clues showing that he was perfectly preserved but no longer in the land of the living, and yet he was holding her chin and his fingers were icy but firm even though the rest of his body was still warm, and in another moment, she was going to start screaming and screaming and simply never stop—</p>
<p>He laid a finger against her lips. <em>Shhh,</em> he mimed.</p>
<p>Anna pushed and pulled her head into a nod.</p>
<p>Then he dropped her chin, and he pointed to the other side of the room.</p>
<p><em>Look,</em> he mouthed.</p>
<p>Anna saw the half-open door of a closet.</p>
<p>“What? I don’t understand,” she managed to say.</p>
<p><em>You will</em>, he said, without saying anything at all.</p>
<p>His finger kept pointing, and her gaze was transfixed on the floor. It was plain and ordinary, made of strips of dark wood. But the longer she stared, the more sure she was that she saw a glimmer in the darkness. Something shiny and hard, like glass—</p>
<p>Shrill screams shattered the air. Anna jumped out of bed without a second thought and ran into the bedroom, almost falling over her shoes in the floor on the way. Mary was sitting bolt upright in her own bed, hands clutching and bunching the coverlet, eyes wide with horror. She opened her mouth to scream again, and Anna understood in the flash that the first scream had made no sound. She had heard it in her dreams, in her own mind, just as she’d done the night before. But there was no time to think about it in that moment.</p>
<p>She ran to the bed just in time, grasping Mary’s hands, barely able to pry them from the coverlet.</p>
<p>“He’s here!” Mary gasped.</p>
<p>Anna shook her head. “He’s not, my lady. Nobody’s here but me.”</p>
<p>Mary shook her head wildly from side to side, her long, loose hair moving like dark water. “I saw him. He came to me, he stood by the side of the bed, smiling. He beckoned for me to get up and follow him, but I wouldn’t, I didn’t. His hand came down towards mine… almost touching me…” She shuddered. “I tell you he’s here, Anna; if you turn and look, you’ll see him.”</p>
<p><em>If you turn and look….</em> Freezing chills spread down Anna’s neck. The night before, the red chair had been sitting directly behind where she was sitting now. The chair that hadn’t been there earlier in the day, that wasn’t supposed to be there at all, because it was in the guest room where Mr. Pamuk had slept. Or rather, not slept. Because he came to this bedroom, on that night.</p>
<p>And he couldn’t possibly be sitting in that red chair, the chair that couldn’t possibly be in Mary’ bedroom to begin with. The chair that could not move, but had moved. The chair that held a clot of red shadow in its seat, a shape the size of a man.  </p>
<p><em>If you turn and look. </em>Mary’s words lingered in the air as surely as if she’d spoken them again.</p>
<p>“He’s waiting…” Mary whispered.</p>
<p>Anna understood quite calmly that If she looked in the corner to see if the red chair was there and Mr. Pamuk was in it, she would start screaming. Then Mary would begin to scream out loud as well, they would wake up the entire house, and the two of them would end up hauled off to Bedlam.</p>
<p><em>I won’t look, </em>she thought<em>.</em> And she did not. She dug her nails firmly into her own palms instead, hoping that the tiny stabs of pain would shake her back to reality. The trick didn’t seem to be working too well.</p>
<p>“My fault,” Mary said, staring into the distance. Staring at nothing, Anna devoutly hoped. “It was all my fault. He stared at me with that smile, and his eyes accused me, even though said nothing. His death was all my—”</p>
<p>“No, it wasn’t,” Anna interrupted.</p>
<p>Mary turned and looked at her for the first time, her eyes huge and haunted. “But it <em>was,</em> Anna.”</p>
<p>“You had nothing to do with it,” she said stoutly. “My lady, I know you didn’t. And I’m finding out the truth about why he really… died.”</p>
<p>Mary blinked. “Really?”</p>
<p>Was there a thread of hope in her voice? Anna thought that perhaps there was, and it lent her a bit of encouragement. “Really. I’ve started in on the job, and I’m going to carry it through to the end.”</p>
<p>“Anna, no. You mustn’t. It’s too dangerous.”</p>
<p>“No, it isn’t. I’m going to find out exactly what really happened, I’ve already begun, and there are loads of clues. I’m learning more every day.”</p>
<p>“But he won’t wait much longer,” whispered Mary.</p>
<p>Anna felt another tiny pain in her knuckles and looked down to see that she was clutching the coverlet in balled fists. “What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“I don’t <em>know.</em> But… he won’t.”</p>
<p>Even at this bizarre moment, when Anna knew she might think all sorts of things that would seem insane in the light of day, she couldn’t believe that a ghost could or would actually take some sort of imagined vengeance. But that the horror of these nights might spill over and explode so that there was no hiding them… that, she could believe, and the possibility frightened her more than any ghost.</p>
<p>“Two days,” she promised recklessly. “I swear, I’ll have some sort of answer in two days. But you must promise me something in return, my lady. You<em> must</em> stop trying to—to hurt yourself.”</p>
<p>“All right,” Mary whispered.</p>
<p>“Do I have your word?” asked Anna, looking her mistress straight in the eye.</p>
<p>“Yes.” She spoke without hesitation, and Anna breathed just a bit easier. She knew that she could trust Mary to keep her word. Honor had been bred into this earl’s daughter from the day she was born.</p>
<p>“Do you think you can sleep now?” asked Anna.</p>
<p>Mary gave a shaky shrug.  </p>
<p>“I know,” said Anna, trying to sound confident. “Do you remember how you told me about that song your nurse used to sing to you, when you were a child and you couldn’t sleep? I’ll sing that.”</p>
<p>Mary nodded and slowly lay back down on the bed. Anna began stroking her hair and singing in a soft, low voice.</p>
<p>“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.”</p>
<p>Mary’s eyes closed, and Anna kept singing.</p>
<p>“When the blazing sun is gone, When he nothing shines upon, Then you show your little light, Twinkle, twinkle, all the night. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.”</p>
<p>Her voice was soft and low and true, and the sound seemed to dispel the darkness a bit.</p>
<p>“As your bright and tiny spark, Lights the traveller in the dark,— Though I know not what you are, Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are…</p>
<p>She lapsed into silence and heard Mary’s deep, even breathing filling the room. A slight breeze blew through the slightly open window, moving the curtains aside. There were few stars to be seen; the moon outside was riding high in the sky, and a shaft of its pale light shifted onto the bed. It must be about four in the morning, Anna judged, sighing deeply and getting up. <em>If I don’t sleep a bit, I’ll be no use to her or anyone else in the morning. </em>Slowly, she trudged into the dressing room and lay down again.</p>
<p>“Tomorrow, I’ll talk to Mr. Bates,” she whispered to the darkness. “We’ll figure out what to do. Together.”</p>
<p>+++</p>
<p>A/N: Like most nursery rhymes, it’s impossible to say exactly how far Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star dates back. But it was a very popular nursery song, and the Downton Abbey nurse (which is a more likely name they actually would have been using at the time than “nanny”) would likely have sung it to Mary, Edith, and Sybil.</p>
<p>I hope everybody enjoyed this chapter, and more coming soon! 😊 I’m going to TRY to update every Saturday from now on.</p>
<p>+++</p>
<p> </p>
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